ART & POETRY BY PAUL & KATHY BOECHER©

When we left for our trip to So. Carolina at the end of April, our ground was still covered with the remnants of a winter blizzard that pounded us a week before.  We spent ten days on our journey, traveling across beautifully countryside which had already burst with the signs of spring.  Purple Wisteria interspersed the now blooming forests and richly darkened fields of soil lay ready for planting.

By the time we returned ten days later, the snow had melted, but temperatures remained chilly.  Hopes of spring seemed forgotten in an instant. The long month of May was filled with some quick growth as buds popped and trees filled with singing birds.  Maybe all was not lost. However, it seemed we jumped right from winter into summer within those days.  When you live in Minnesota, you expect to have severe extremes in weather, but those seasons of spring and fall are so elusive, you barely know they exist.

I wrote a poem a while back which led me to sounding a lot like Dr. Seuss.  I guess you get that way when you live in a land of extremes.

Was it only yesterday, I didn’t put the hose away?

The winter months sailed swiftly by, but when they left I did not cry.

The winters in the great Midwest are absolutely not the best.

But finally the cold days passed.  I yearned for spring, but it went fast.

It seems we’ve jumped from cold to hot.  I do not like it – absolutely not.

The hose still lies where it has lain, for it will now be used again.

To water all the blooms that popped,

 When summer came and winter stopped.