Not If, But When

The prestidigitating god of change in February
seems so oddly out of whack: so many lame
impracticalities beset this mostly mum unfunny

joker, it’s a wonder Winter ever goes or Spring
comes back: innumerable embryonic fingers
and a slew of booted toes all twiddle, prod and tap

to no avail that we can see; the constancy
with which he seems to do quite nothing interesting
at all is, it is true, not helped by his appalling taste

in hue and shirts and pants and hats: random bits
of thisses, that’s – stretches, dots and stripes
of purple, blue and orange, pink and green and red

be-whirl into a splay before our blinking eyes
which will have bled into a dreary gray before we’ve
had a moment to surmise his questionable prize.

Otherwise he sits – perhaps a touch less clown
than Pharaoh – steadily looks forward, almost Zen.
And somehow tells us Spring’s not if, but when.

.