Growing Pains

Many years ago a cousin of mine who lives in Zurich suggested that he would like to visit Minnesota on his down-time in March. And I dissuaded him.

Of all the months to choose from he picked the one with mounds of dirty snow melting in mall lots, with trees still bare-boned and without buds, with wild weather swings from days in the 60s to plowable snowstorms, with winter's detritus of food wrappers and cups and cigarettes freshly exposed and not yet swept away.

In my opinion Minnesota is an incredibly beautiful state 11/12 of the year. And then there is March.



Growing Pains


March in Minnesota:
a junior high collection
of bad haircuts, forgettable
photos, and unhappy skin.

Hedging toward change,
it wears a winter coat
two sizes too small,
knobby wrists exposed.
New growth stumbles in boots
suddenly grown tight.

One ear flinches from winter,
fearing another swipe
but the other strains to catch
summertime blues playing
around the corner.

A time of brooding, a month of angst.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor