Poem for March

The March wind roars

Like a lion in the sky,

And makes us shiver

As he passes by. 

When winds are soft,

And the days are warm and clear,

Just like a gentle lamb,

Then spring is here.

-  Unknown

Dog Days of Summer

Welcome to August and the Dog Days of Summer. Does that phrase bring to mind a panting pooch? Well, here's an Old Farmer's Almanac piece on the true origin of the phrase.

The Funnies - April Showers (1927)

Life magazine, December 1927

The Full Snow Moon

Tonight the Full Snow Moon fills the night sky.  It gets its name from the heavy snows that often blanket the landscape in February. The native peoples of America also called February’s full moon the Hunger Moon due to the fact that the deep snow and inclement weather made hunting and foraging more difficult.

 

For me a February full moon speaks of longing. It’s a ghost of the moons of spring and summer, wan riding in the deep sky of winter. It can hear spring’s approach but foretells only cold suffering for another month. Only lovers can keep one another warm in desolate February.

February

by Margret Atwood

 

Winter. Time to eat fat

And watch hockey. In the pewter mornings, the cat,

A black fur sausage with yellow

Houdini eyes, jumps up on the bed and tries

To get onto my head. It’s his

Way of telling whether or not I’m dead.

He’ll think of something. He settles

On my chest, breathing his breath

Of burped-up meat and musty sofas,

purring like a washboard. Some other tomcat,

not yet a capon, has been spraying our front door,

declaring war. It’s all about sex and territory,

which are what will finish us off

in the long run. Some cat owners around here

should snip a few testicles. If we wise

hominids were sensible, we’d do that too,

or eat our young, like sharks.

But it’s love that does us in. Over and over

again, he shoots, he scores! and famine

crouches in the bedsheets, ambushing the pulsing

eiderdown, and the windchill factor hits

thirty below, and pollution pours

out of our chimneys to keep us warm.

February, month of despair,

With a skewered heart in the center.

I think dire thoughts, and lust for French fries

with a splash of vinegar.

Cat, enough of your greedy whining

and your small pink bumhole.

Off my face! You’re the life principle,

more or less, so get going

on a little optimism around here.

Get rid of death. Celebrate increase. Make it be spring.

Friday Quote

“Heat, ma’am!” I said; “it was so dreadful here, that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones.”

~ Sydney Smith (1771–1845)

Weekends in March

Dear Reader,


I ventured out to celebrate a good friend's 60th birthday this Saturday. Per form, the weather proved to be cold and blustery but there are plenty of things to do on a Saturday in March when you don't have to be anywhere in particular. So, giving my friend his choice of where to have lunch, we found ourselves at the Rathskeller, sitting in the Kellerbar under the mounted moose head with the sun pouring in through the high windows. Between the spirits and the sunlight, one could forget the outside temperature hovered somewhere barely north of 30 degrees and a twenty mile-per-hour wind whipped through the streets. We ate a good meal of less-than-healthy food, drank, and discussed work, politics, and the general state of humanity in the modern age for a couple of hours under the roof of the building Vonnegut's ancestors designed then gathered our coats and set out on the downtown of Indianapolis.

From the house of Vonnegut we made our way to the Eiteljorg to catch the Red Black exhibit. For those of you who aren't Indianapolis natives, the Eiteljorg is the local museum of Native American and Western history. It's a lovely building that (by design) seems to rise out of the ground, kiva-style. The exhibit, like many good museum installations, left me feeling enlightened and troubled. My Cherokee heritage has always been a source of pride however, learning that my people kept slaves reinforced the realization that native peoples are just that - people. They have all of the same flaws and shortcomings no matter what their genetics.

From inspecting the past we made our way to the big downtown mall to discover another of the mega bookstores, Borders, is closing up shop in downtown Indianapolis. It was my wakeup to the fact that the chain had gone bankrupt. Had I waited ten more days I would have missed the entire thing and been left knowing something had been on the corner of Meridian and Washington Street but unable to remember what it had been. We shopped the remnants and it felt a bit like attending an estate auction while the viewing was still underway in the parlor.

I have the distinct feeling birthdays shouldn't come in March. It's too depressing a month, filled with rain that wanted to be snow but didn't make it and ceaseless, restless wind. Even the ground is wet, swollen and sick with too much rain. A lot of people would say the month of my birthday is just as inappropriate, January is a frozen and unforgiving month of bitter cold and driven snow - equally depressing. Still, I think March is worse. It's the season of promises on the brink. Of hints at warmth that turn out to be misleading; the weather version of red herrings. This March has come in like the proverbial lion but, in the hearts of every Hoosier, we know there's little guarantee she'll leave like a lamb.

I don't mean to leave you depressed! Looking at the facts, the days are getting longer and the average temperature is climbing with each day. Spring has arrived, harbinger of summer's long, languid afternoons and temperate nights. All is not lost - it's just a bit uncomfortable for a while.