Spring in Minnesota

April comes in tatters to The Cities, wind-whipped and shivering.
I turn up the heat in the garage, dulling the edge of March,
and wrestle the lawn mower into fighting trim. Outside,
the bird feeders, hung with holiday care, do figure-eights
waiting for snow to fall tonight. And I change the mower belt!

The belt does its own figure-eights, each pulley with a guide
that has to be loosened to allow the belt inside. All the while,
I think about the snow waiting to fall tonight, and wonder
whether this is prudence or madness I am showing.

We have already had seven feet of snow, and more tonight,
but I am a believer, and I believe the weather forecast that says
there shall only be an inch or two of slushy snow, and it will go
by itself, to there where slush filters through the rags of April,
to the wetlands, and the rivers beyond, and to the sea.

The mower blades, frozen fast by last Summer's hammering
at the grass, finally snap free, and bare their rounded edges,
appearing like the teeth of a gravel-eating sand-maker.
"They will last another year," I say, "and so shall I."

Spring does not amble into Minnesota, and loll on the grass.
It comes hounded by the dogs of winter, and turns often
to establish its territory, and to green the grass.

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