their way out like a pride of hungry lions.
The chilblains of the borrowed days of the brindled cow,
what the Irish monks called Laethanta na Bó Riabhai,
are among us, making ancestors of our ancient ones.
Complaining about the second childhood of cattle,
groundhog shadows, or the vagaries of weather is pointless.
The almanac of winter love, dressed in sleet and snow,
aquamarine and bloodstone, gets final say—
despite rolling out the new year’s equinox pledge.
It’s a portmanteau payback for those three stolen days
in February, a false spring Jezebel that showered us
with a swale of narcissus and blackthorn blossoms,
So, mad March stole a day from April, and the old cow died.
Cruelest April also promises a compound interest plan,
it rolls up its cuffs, trading taxable per deum days
with the war god, Mars, despite a shepherd’s wild vow
of a sacrifice of a firstborn suckling lamb to slake
the insatiable hunger that is the madness of March.
3/29/23
Extensively revised 3/31
To be fair, it was barely more than a line, ok so, the first two lines.
March borrowed from April
Three days and they were ill
The first was snow and sleet
The next was cold and wet
The third was such a freeze
The birds's nests stuck to trees
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