I don’t know what the weather is like where you live, but here in northwest Iowa, it’s still winter. It snowed most of the day and blew around the rest of it. It did the same about a week ago. In fact, we’ve had snow every month since October.
I don’t mind winter. I usually like winter for about two months. Unfortunately, winter lasts much longer than 2 months. This year especially.
A dear friend recently gave me a book of poetry written by a former colleague of mine at Oklahoma Baptist University, Benjamin Myers. In an effort to cheer on spring, I would like to share Ben’s poem with you:
CLASS OUTSIDE
It’s never as good as students think
it will be: even in Arcadia
weed-whackers whine
in a hover above our voices.
The professor gets grass
stains on his khaki seat,
and half the class is gone
when a girl in white shorts walks by.
Even when it kind of works, the wind
keeps turning pages, a mosquito
gets smeared across the Georgics,
a ladybug lands in someone’s tea.
But every spring we are back
out here on the grass, ringed
on the green, posing
for university photographers,
and squinting to read in the glare
of the sun’s brand new flesh.
Here’s to weed whackers, white shorts, warms winds, and (
dare I say it?) even mosquitos.
Thank you to my friend and to Ben for evoking the world of spring.
Come on, Spring!
Benjamin Myers, “Class Outside.” Lapse Americana, (New York: NYQ Books, 2013), 102.
