A Year of Poems: March

March comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb, right? Or is that April? Depends on where you live and what climate change is doing to move your local weather patterns. Although Shakespeare made the ides of March famous in "Julius Caesar" every month has its ides; per Merriam-Webster the ides was the 15th of March, May, July, or October (the four original 31-day months) or the 13th day of any other month in the ancient Roman calendar

March is also the month in which you may celebrate World Poetry Day on March 21, established by UNESCO in 1999.

Many of the poems I found were from the 19th century. I prefer contemporary poetry so I'm not including the ones with the galloping beat and the occasional forced rhyme. 

This first poem is about a very particular March, one unlike any other before it in my lifetime and one I hope not to find echoed in a future month.

"Things That Are Changed—March 2020" by Kimiko Hahn

Empty jar: I think to grow beansprouts and look into ordering seeds. Back ordered until May 1.

"March 1st" by Larry Schug

A radio weather caster warns his listeners
that tonight will be winter’s coldest,
though spring lurks like a shy suitor,
paralyzed with uncertainty,
shivering on the steps
outside his loved one’s door.

"Dear March—Come in—(1320)" by Emily Dickinson

I got your Letter, and the Birds—
The Maples never knew that you were coming—
I declare - how Red their Faces grew—

"We Like March" by Emily Dickinson

We like March, his shoes are purple.
He is new and high;
Makes he mud for Dog and Peddler,
Makes he forests dry.

"Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself" by Wallace Stevens

The sun was rising at six,
No longer a battered panache above snow . . .

"March Thought" by Hilda Conkling 
(this is the entire poem)

I am waiting for the flowers
To come back:
I am alone,
But I can wait for the birds.

"Mid-March" by Mary Ricketson

Surprise is the rule when spring makes promises
and promises are made to break.

"Snowbound, March" by Alice N. Persons

Tomorrow will bring the hard labor of plows,
of shoveling walks, snowblowing a path for the oil man,
the too-familiar weariness
of all that Sisyphean work

but for these few hours there is a kind of peace
in the mostly silent streets,

"March" by Linda Lee Konichek

A few bewildered blades of new grass
Poke through this wet cover, unsure
Of such a cold white-rain world. 

…still there is a softness in the morning air...

"Sprung" by Yash Seyedbagheri

now rich mud of March
pokes through
streams meandering with cheerful indolence
no need to slink straight through snow 

and charcoal nights are replaced
by the lush lavender
evening chill—but not coldness

"Revival" by Luci Shaw

March. I am beginning
to anticipate a thaw. Early mornings
the earth, old unbeliever, is still crusted with frost

"Late March" by Richard Schiffman

Again the trees remembered
to make leaves.
In the forest of their recollection
many birds returned
singing.

A Year of Poems

• A Year of Poems: January
• A Year of Poems: February

Seeing and other Ways of Knowing

I've been thinking a lot about visual metaphors. A lot. When we use a term related to seeing we sometimes mean actual sight, the perception of something that comes in through the visual cortex. But more often we use it to mean so many other words: perceive, recognize, acknowledge, comprehend. 

Ever since reading a piece about how use of visual metaphors excludes people who are blind, I've sought to avoid using visual metaphors as a matter of equity and accessibility. I'm trying not to use terminology that isn't equally available to all. An example that comes up again and again in all kinds of documents: I change "See Appendix A" to "Refer to Appendix A." Whether you're reading print or Braille or listening to a screen reader, you can refer to an appendix.

English in and of itself is not equally available to all. So as I choose words, do I sort my way through all the layers that they bring and all that they stand for? When I do that, what will change in my writing and speech? I research* idioms and phrases I learned as a child to check on** whether they have a racist history I wasn't aware of (true more often than I ever would have guessed).

I came at this question first because of my work in traffic safety, a topic in which the physical world and the language used to describe transportation are so often automobility centered, or "motonormative," to use a term coined by Ian Walker. I give talks in which I tell people to be mode-neutral in order to be mode-inclusive. In other words, re-examine statements to uncover those hidden biases and -isms. 

What does this reexamination mean for everyday speech about things that aren't traffic? What is it that we center, decenter, acknowledge within a wider circle? How do we draw that circle larger and larger so that what we say has meaning for more and more people? 

I'm almost calling for us to translate our own works into other words. When I read poetry in the morning and they acknowledge that a poem was translated, I don't know what was lost through that. I also don't know what was gained.

If we translate our own words into new words we may lose a bit of something we're used to. The exercise of finding new ways to express ourselves in more inclusive ways provides so many gains. As we undertake this rethinking of how we express ourselves what will we notice, perceive, recognize, comprehend, acknowledge, process?

* For "research" I could have used "look up". I chose not to.

** For "check on" I could have used "see". I chose not to.

Edited to add: Shortly after publishing this I read a piece about Toni Morrison's Nobel Prize acceptance speech that adds so much more depth to a discussion of the power of language, with a story about blindness to illustrate the point.

"Be it grand or slender, burrowing, blasting, or refusing to sanctify; whether it laughs out loud or is a cry without an alphabet, the choice word, the chosen silence, unmolested language surges toward knowledge, not its destruction." — Toni Morrison

Reruns: February Posts Worth Revisiting

February is a short month even in a leap year like 2024, but some years it has been a fairly prolific blogging month (although nothing compared to January). 

I don't list every February post here; these are the ones I think hold up over time, or that provide a fun or funny trip down memory lane. I list the dates so you can decide just how interested you are in something I wrote 15 years ago. Wow, that went by fast. 

• Walking in February: Of Woods and Water (Feb. 25, 2023)
• The Rocker (Feb. 20, 2023)
• How Am I Going to Get There? Why We Need Each Other (Bike Style, Feb. 18, 2023)
• Bike, Transit, Car: Three Transportation Perspectives from Seattle (Bike Style, Feb. 25, 2018)
• Washington Counties Challenge: A Statewide Bikespedition To-do List (, Feb. 5, 2018)
• Bikes Are Being USED, I Tell You. Keep Up the Good Work. (Bike Style, Feb. 7, 2013)
• The Soundtrack in my Head  (Bike Style, Feb. 28, 2012)
• Consider Adoption--Of a Bike Lane, That Is  (Bike Style, Feb. 13, 2012)
• Unmindful Biking by Yours Truly  (Bike Style, Feb. 11, 2012)
• Mindful Driving, Mindful Biking, and "Accidents"--Part II  (Bike Style, Feb. 10, 2012)
• Mindful Driving, Mindful Biking, and "Accidents"--Part I  (Bike Style, Feb. 9, 2012)
• It Pays to Pay Attention (Feb. 8, 2012)
• Miss Manners Would Approve: Dealing with Drivers (Bike Style, Feb. 7, 2012)
• If Bikes Were Electric Hand Dryers (Feb. 24, 2011)
• Hint: It's the First Word in the Boy Scout Law (No, Not Brave or Clean) (Feb. 12, 2011)
• Making Soup--er, Bike Networks (Feb. 10, 2011)
• Head, Heart, Hands, and Health (Feb. 6, 2011)
• Political Scrapbook: Elected Officials I Have Known (Feb. 4, 2011)
• A Tale of Two Drivers (Feb. 2, 2011)
• Stuff I Didn't Do Today, or, I Know what Happiness Tastes Like (Feb. 27, 2010)
• Becoming a Bike Commuter: It's Pretty Easy, One Mile at a Time (Feb. 22, 2009)
• Fun with Numbers. No, Really, I Mean It. (Feb. 7, 2009)
• 25 Random Things About Me, in Random Order (Feb. 4, 2009)

A Year of Poems: February

February has an interesting history as a month (depending on how you define "interesting"). It's the month you have to stop and think about; does it have 28 days this year or 29? (Hint: This year is divisible by 4.)

The word februare means "to purify" in the dialect of the ancient Sabine tribe; February was the month used to honor the dead and perform ceremonies of purification. 

If you're someone who makes a lot of resolutions January 1, this is the month when those chickens of intention come home to roost. If one of them had to do with organizing a closet or a garage or the whole dang place and this strangely has not yet occurred, you might approach it as a ceremony of purification and tell people you planned to do it in February all along. You're right on schedule—although you'd better hustle since it's still shorter than all the other months.

This idea of purification also fits with the Celtic celebration of Imbolc February 1-2. As a celebration of the coming spring and rebirth, it honors the Celtic goddess Brigid. Flowers have already started to bloom where I live, so yes, spring is on its way.

"February 29" by Jane Hirschfield

An extra day—

Accidental, surely:
the made calendar stumbling over the real

"Aquarium, February" by Liz Ahl

When ice outside makes daggers of the grass,
I come to where the tides of life still flow.
The water here still moves behind the glass.

"February Evening in New York" by Denise Levertov

 Prospect of sky
    wedged into avenues, left at the ends of streets,   
    west sky, east sky: more life tonight! A range   
    of open time at winter's outskirts.

"February" by Margaret Atwood

February, month of despair,
with a skewered heart in the centre.
I think dire thoughts, and lust for French fries
with a splash of vinegar.

"February" by Bill Christopherson

when things in need of doing go undone
and things that can't be undone come to call,
muttering recriminations at the door,
and buried ambitions rise up through the floor

"February" by Michael Field

Learn more about the collaboration of two women writing under the pseudonym "Michael Field." This one is short; presented in its entirety.

Gay lucidity,
Not yet sunshine, in the air;
Tingling secrets hidden everywhere,
Each at watch for each;
Sap within the hillside beech,
Not a leaf to see.

"The Brook in February" by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

A snowy path for squirrel and fox,
It winds between the wintry firs.
Snow-muffled are its iron rocks,
And o'er its stillness nothing stirs.

"Late February" by Ted Kooser

But such a spring is brief;
by five o’clock
the chill of sundown,
darkness, the blue TVs
flashing like storms
in the picture windows,
the yards gone gray,

"February" by Jill Osier

I curse this month, all it wants 

to be. Its lot is the same
each time, unthawed. 

Yet it taunts.
Dreamer month!

"February" by Tamiko Beyer

Now, a ball of twine in the grey sky. The sun rolls low on the horizon. Hangs. Then dips back down again, wind howling us into night.

Inside the erratic rhythm of this wavering flame, I conjure the potent sky of the longest day. Seeds with a whole galaxy inside them. Cicadas vibrating in the alders.