TWO SONNETS FROM MARCH GALES

I will not let this wild wind harry me
Like bleating sheep are by a darting dog.
I’ll stand my ground midst the roaring, and see
What others flinch from. The mild winter fog
Turns sharply colder with a blast of snow,
And from car to office lemmings scurry
And wonder why I don’t. Some even slow
And look up where I look. Without worry
I feel the cutting cold muss up my hair,
Feel the shivers, allow awe’s bells to strike.
Branches whip, entire trees sway, yet the care
Of a pruner spent winter trimming. The pike
Was littered with twigs, but now branches fail
To strike each other, despite the mad gale.

If you heed you will hear the roaring change
In the month of March. Hear the changing tone
And don’t be tone deaf. There is nothing strange
Or unscientific involved. Don’t groan
I’m being absurd, a moon-struck romantic.
Instead hold my hand. Don’t say you’ve no time.
Let the wind be, if someone must be quick,
For life passes too fast, and it’s a crime
To be deaf to the music that’s everyday.
Every day is a gift filled with beauty.
As the buds swell with sap you cannot say
The sound is the same. God’s zephyr’s pure duty
Is to play us theme-music meant to uplift.
Open your ears to Compassion’s sweet gift.

LOCAL VIEW –Sunny Gales–

The map shows the storm blowing up just after it passed us, to the right edge of the map.

We got a drenching as the storm passed over New England in a weaker state, but today was dryer, and the wind hurried the drying, and the sky was soon filled with hurrying clouds. In fact there was something hurried in the air, though it wasn’t exactly hectic. At first the buffeting wind made you flinch, due to the winter-like cold, but the sun was soon high and the cold relented.

The children at the Farm-childcare are basically nuts. They have spring in their veins. As a so-called “Child Care Professional” (IE Babysitter) I attend state-ordained classes and learn a fair amount about how X, Y and Z make children hyper, but few remember the effect of spring. It is definitely a power all its own, and felt by the elders as well.

A few days ago a small boy happened to have an odometer attached to his belt as he got off the school-bus. Or, to be more scientific and precise, it is wrong to state he “got” off the bus. It is more accurate to say he “exploded” off the bus. I wouldn’t even let him indoors, except to use the bathroom, (and even that involved a brief time of pillaging and havoc amidst the smaller children). He is just the sort of a boy who should not be asked to sit at a desk for more than a half hour, and after six hours of first grade he needed to explode. He went racing about the playground, and the odometer measured his racing.  As a scientist I am sure I have whetted your interest. The boy covered 3.1 miles, in a fenced area about a third the size of a football field, in the 90 minutes he was with us before his parents arrived. (The widget on my cellphone (attached to my belt) tells me that today I walked 4,888 steps, or 2.38 miles.  And I’m expected to keep up with that boy!?)

He wasn’t the only one. He was one of eight who got off that bus, and all were equally berserk. I don’t pretend I have the ability to control that energy. Instead I dart about breaking up potential fights, a bit like a flea amidst a stampede of elephants. I happen to  be a very adept flea, but for the most part I set the children free, cursing beneath my breath about the school system that constrains them all day. I am of the opinion that six-year-old first-graders learn more running free than they do sitting constrained.

In a day at school a kid likely learns some six or seven one-word answers to questions. That doesn’t add up to a single conversation.

When they are all running about berserk I have to monitor their wild conversations. I don’t think there is any odometer that measures the mileage their conversations cross, but it is huge. Stick an elder in that mix, and maybe they can learn a bit more than that Concord is the capital of New Hampshire.  One rowdy boy, who was incapable of learning even that tedious fact in school, learned Concord is the capital of New Hampshire from me, for it somehow came up in the zany conversations.

Another boy, who back in politically incorrect times we would have called a “cry-baby”, surprised me by  laughing for an hour straight. He ran about with the others laughing in a way he couldn’t control, which was nearly sobbing at times, but never involved tears. I thought to myself that I could not think of a better example of spring in a child’s veins. (I will admit that laughing so much utterly exhausted him, and he eventually began sniveling, but even then laughter kept intruding. He just seemed tired.)

And that is on a dull day. On a day like today, when the wind is roaring and the sun is flashing in and out of purple clouds,  and the entire trunks of the pines are swaying, the berserk become berserker.  Nothing is stable, when the spots of sun slide over the earth with cloud-shadows at their heels, until you feel you are standing atop the energy of a Star Trek “transporter beam.”

Today’s spring gales mixed sunshine with purple
And entire trees swayed. Winter was mixed
With Spring, and yet dancing Spring had her full
Battle dress on. Her roving eyes were fixed
On you only a moment, yet white heat
Blushed like a boy. Then cloud-shadows hurtled
The sliding distance and purple gloaming beat
Against dented eyes. Exposed, then turtled
With armor of wool, and then again lured
Out, the roaring sunshine’s buffeting
Confused the staid, and yet completely cured
The dullard; and the mute learned how to sing,
And the sane saw it’s not bad being mad,
And grouches bit lips, to avoid looking glad.