We were planning to post this lovely poem by Barry Casselman for Poetry Month anyway, and then Mother Nature decided to provide the perfect accompaniment to go with it! Herewith, our Poetry Month offering. --eds.

Just Before Spring Comes
By Barry Casselman

Just before spring comes,
there is a cold storm with fresh snow.
The sky decorates the streets and the yards
of the city with icy linens,
but it is no longer charming
as it was in November.

Childen usually learn patience from teachers.
Those who are older relearn it each year
in this darkest and oddest season.

Learn to care for those things
you didn¹t think you could care for,
every day tells us,
like an imperious professor.

I did that with vegetables
and some other foods
I didn¹t relish as a child.

But the whole world, the whole world?

I pick up some fresh snow with my bare hands.

It stings.
I let it provoke me.

The whole world. The whole world.

Barry Casselman's literary work is published widely in the U.S., and in translation in Asia, Europe and South America, and has appeared in American Poetry Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Kansas Quarterly, Calcutta 2000 and numerous other periodicals.