Some say I am a blowhard, some a bag of wind. I am definitely proof that variety is the spice of life. It is amazing how much I can change from my first day until my last.
I hold lightly to warmth and can be undone by shadow or shade. I love to dream about the dance of newborn leaves that will soon be riding on the limbs of my sister April.
I am rightly named for I do not quietly go my way. I do indeed march and roar and call attention to myself. I look up and am excited by the first geese to fly overhead. I create the beauty of a waterfall where only a day before there was a dry creek bed.
There was a time when, according to the Roman calendar, I was the first month of the year. I, as one of the children of mother nature, look up toward the sun and think how tired you must be of having your rays to travel so far to warm my face.
Would you gain my special blessing? Then race my fast moving March clouds across the face of the sky. Think large March thoughts for I am not a month of the subtle. Shout a gladdened goodbye to a long winter and happy hello to spring.
The earth has some warmth beginning in it but hardly enough to write home about. Seeds will unfold their secret and another garden will yet to grow. "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" wrote Percy Bysshe Shelley.
It's not a beauteous thought for humans but it is a necessary one: remember to change the oil in your crankcase. This one thing I would often do, preparing for speaking tours and thereby, prolonging March as I traveled south to north.
But now, I will fly a kite with my grandchildren as my grandfather did with me, watching it cut its colorful patterns across the sky. It is a tradition of many families over many years. I will listen to the robin sing while still shivering as March so often cannot make up its mind between whether it wants to be winter or spring.
I look out my backyard and see a forest and remember how many Marches it took to grow to its present height. March is the quiver of growth as the snows of winter retreat and make a last stand in the shadows and the shade.
I hope I never completely give up on what March madness can do. It can and does and will give its special gifts. Who can look at a buttercup or daffodil and not feel young again? It’s St. Patrick's Day and some claim to be Irish who aren't and never will be. But we can all find a four leaf clover and wear something the color of Irish green.
Do you hear that echoing cry that repeats itself every spring? No winter lasts forever.