Waiting for Spring While Closely Watching Punxsutawney Phil

Each year my pulse outruns the melting street,

I sense the thaw before it hits my feet.

Winter passes by slowly, and I become resigned,

As green thoughts begin to crowd my mind.

February toys with hope and doubt,

Cold days linger, yet the light stays out

A minute more, then more again,

Like spring rehearsing how to enter when.

I watch for Phil, that whiskered seer,

With bated breath and collective ear.

Shadow seen—unfortunate decree,

Six extra weeks of freezing supremacy.

I groan, then laugh, as I do each year,

Because the end is coming, that is clear.

Snow may posture, ice may flex,

But time has already sent the next.

Beneath the boots, beneath the freeze,

The trees prepare to generate green leaves.

Drips drum sunlight from the eaves above,

Each drop a pulse of thawing earth and love.

Winter lingers on, but cracks betray

Green shoots that cannot be kept at bay.

Predictions stand in coats, assured and nice,

Then slip—like ice admitting it is ice.

The calendar still remembers being turned forward once already.