Early March in Vermont, and for a week now
the snow has slowly melted into the landscape.
The sap runs from the maples to the sugar houses.

It is easy to believe winter is done,
releasing its grip, softening the earth
with its promise of greening.

But I lived long enough to know winter
does not surrender so easily. It will come again
and hold the season hostage with ice and new snow.

And we will complain. We will whine.
Somehow forgetting this happens each year
and that spring comes in fits and starts

and false springs may bring more grey weather
and white, icy landscapes, but they too will pass,
for each false spring is a harbinger of the inevitable.