Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo
The air is like a butterfly
With frail blue wings.
The happy earth looks at the sky
And sings.
- Joyce Kilmer, Spring
Slayer of the
winter, art thou here again?
O welcome, thou that's bring'st the summer nigh!
The bitter wind makes not thy victory vain,
Nor will we mock thee for thy faint blue sky.
Welcome, O March! whose kindly days and dry
Make April ready for the throstle's song,
Thou first redresser of the winter's wrong!
- William
Morris, March
The afternoon is bright,
with spring in the air,
a mild March afternoon,
with the breath of April stirring,
I am alone in the quiet patio
looking for some old untried illusion -
some shadow on the whiteness of the wall
some memory asleep
on the stone rim of the fountain,
perhaps in the air
the light swish of some trailing gown.
- Antonio Machado, 1875-1939
Selected
Poems, # 3, Translated by Alan S. Trueblood
We need spring.
We need it desperately and, usually,
we need it before God is willing to give it to us.
- Peter Gzowski, Spring Tonic
If we had no winter, the spring
would not be so pleasant:
if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity
would not be so welcome.
- Anne Bradstreet, Meditations Divine and Moral,
1655
Winter is long in this climate
and spring--a matter of a few days
only,--a flower or two picked
from mud or from among wet leaves
or at best against treacherous
bitterness of wind, and sky shining
teasingly, then closing in black
and sudden, with fierce jaws.
- William Carlos Williams, March
Each leaf,
each blade of grass
vies for attention.
Even weeds
carry tiny blossoms
to astonish us.
- Marianne Poloskey, Sunday
in Spring
The sun is brilliant in the sky but its
warmth does not reach my face.
The breeze stirs the trees but leaves my hair unmoved.
The cooling rain will feed the grass but will not slake my thirst.
It is all inches away but further from me than my dreams.
- M. Romeo LaFlamme, The
First of March
Botanists say
that trees need the powerful March winds to flex
their trunks and main branches, so the sap is drawn up to
nourish the budding leaves. Perhaps we need the gales of life
in the same way, though we dislike enduring them.
- Jane Truax
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
- William Wordsworth, Daffodils
When March goes on
forever,
And April's twice as long,
Who gives a damn if spring has come,
As long as winter's gone.
- R. L. Ruzicka
Last day of Winter,
leafless walnut trees--
form is emptiness.
First day of Spring,
clear sky to Mt. Shasta--
emptiness is form.
- Michael P.
Garofalo, 2000, Cuttings
March is the month of expectation,
The things we do not know,
The Persons of Prognostication
Are coming now.
We try to sham becoming firmness,
But pompous joy
Betrays us, as his first betrothal
Betrays a boy.
- Emily Dickinson, XLVIII
The first day of spring was once the
time for taking the young virgins
into the fields, there in dalliance to set an example in fertility for
nature
to follow. Now we just set the clocks an hour ahead and change
the oil in the crankcase.
- E.B. White, "Hot Weather," One
Man's Meat, 1944
The crow has flown away:
swaying in the evening sun,
a leafless tree.
- Soseki Natsume, 1900
Of
winter's lifeless world each tree
Now seems a perfect part;
Yet each one holds summer's secret
Deep down within its heart.
- Charles G. Stater
Every spring is the only spring - a
perpetual astonishment.
- Ellis Peters
The March wind roars
Like a lion in the sky,
And makes us shiver
As he passes by.
When winds are soft,
And the days are warm and clear,
Just like a gentle lamb,
Then spring is here.
- Author Unknown
Like an army defeated
The snow hath retreated,
And now doth fare ill
On the top of the bare hill;
The plowboy is whooping- anon-anon:
There's joy in the mountains;
There's life in the fountains;
Small clouds are sailing,
Blue sky prevailing;
The rain is over and gone!
- William Wordsworth, Written in March
Only with
winter-patience can we bring
The deep-desired, long-awaited spring.
-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Spring is nature's way of saying,
"Let's party!"
- Robin Williams
No winter lasts forever; no
spring skips it's turn.
- Hal Borland
Let the old
snow be covered with the new:
The trampled snow, so soiled, and stained, and sodden.
Let it be hidden wholly from our view
By pure white flakes, all trackless and untrodden.
When Winter dies, low at the sweet Spring's feet
Let him be mantled in a clean, white sheet.
- Ella
Wheeler Wilcox, A March Snow
Ere frost-flower and snow-blossom faded and
fell,
and the splendour of winter had passed out
of sight,
The ways of the woodlands were fairer and stranger
than dreams that fulfill us in sleep with
delight;
The breath of the mouths of the winds had hardened on tree-tops
and branches that glittered and swayed
Such wonders and glories of blossom like snow
or of frost that outlightens all flowers
till it fade
That the sea was not lovelier than here was the land,
nor the night than the day, nor the day
than the night,
Nor the winter sublimer with storm than the spring:
such mirth had the madness and might in
thee made,
March, master of winds, bright minstrel and marshal of storms
that enkindle the season they smite.
- Algernon C. Swinburne, March:
An Ode
Blue through
the window burns the twilight;
Heavy, through trees, blows the warm south wind.
Glistening, against the chill, gray sky light,
Wet, black branches are barred and entwined.
Sodden and spongy, the scarce-green grass plot
Dents into pools where a foot has been.
Puddles lie spilt in the road a mass, not
Of water, but steel, with its cold, hard sheen.
- Amy Lowell,
March Evening
Today is the day when bold kites fly,
When cumulus clouds roar across the sky.
When robins return, when children cheer,
When light rain beckons spring to appear.
Today is the day when daffodils bloom,
Which children pick to fill the room,
Today is the day when grasses green,
When leaves burst forth for spring to be seen.
- Robert McCracken, Spring
The Sun at noon to higher air,
Unharnessing the silver Pair
That late before his chariot swam,
Rides on the gold wool of the Ram.
So braver notes the storm-cock sings
To start the rusted wheel of things,
And brutes in field and brutes in pen
Leap that the world goes round again.
The boys are up the woods with day
To fetch the daffodils away,
And home at noonday from the hills
They bring no dearth of daffodils.
- Alfred
Edward Housman, March
The winter river;
down it come floating
flowers offered to Buddha.
- Yosa Buson
Now every field is clothed with grass,
and every tree with leaves;
now the woods put forth their blossoms,
and the year assumes its gay attire.
- Virgil
Indoors or out, no one relaxes
In March, that month of wind and taxes,
The wind will presently disappear,
The taxes last us all the year.
- Ogden Nash
Many of the phenomena of Winter are
suggestive of an inexpressible
tenderness and fragile delicacy. We are accustomed to hear this king
described as a rude and boisterous tyrant; but with the gentleness of
a lover he adorns the tresses of Summer.
- Henry David Thoreau
March wind
unwinding from a gray sky
metronome of spring
it rushes through a deep sleep
and scatters my dreams of you
- Marjorie A. Beuttner, Shiki-Tanka
Archives
Only in dreams of spring
Shall I ever see again
The flowering of my cherry trees.
- Frances Hodgson Burnett
Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers in the
flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.
Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.
- Robert Frost, A Prayer in Spring
Cuttings - March - Haiku and Short Poems by Michael P. Garofalo
Winter is the
time for comfort, for good food and warmth,
for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the
fire: it is the time for home.
- Dame Edith
Sitwell
What's good about March?
Well, for one thing,
it keeps February and April apart.
- Walt Kelly
March is an in between month,
When wintry winds are high.
But milder days remind us all,
Spring's coming by and by.
Autumn arrives
in the early morning,
but spring at the close of a winter day.
- Elizabeth
Bowen
O the green things growing, the green things
growing,
The faint sweet smell of the green things growing!
I should like to live, whether I smile or grieve,
Just to watch the happy life of my green things growing.
- Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, Green
Things Growing
Springtime is the land awakening.
The March winds are the morning yawn.
- Lewis Grizzard, Kathy Sue Loudermilk, I Love You
To
be interested in the changing seasons is a
happier state of mind than to be hopelessly
in love with spring.
-
George Santayana
I don't know what smell of wet earth or rotting
leaves brought back my childhood
with a rush and all the happy days I had spent in a garden. Shall I ever forget that
day? It
was the beginning of my real life, my coming of age as it were, and entering
into my kingdom. Early March, gray, quiet skies, and brown, quiet earth; leafless
and sad and lonely enough out
there in the damp and silence, yet there I stood
feeling the same rapture of pure delight in the
first breath of spring that I used to
as a child, and the five wasted years fell from me like a
cloak, and the world was
full of hope, and I vowed myself then and there to nature and have been
happy ever since.
- Elizabeth von Arnim, Elizabeth and Her
German Garden, 1898
Under the green hedges, after the
snow,
There do the dear little violets grow;
Hiding their modest and beautiful heads
Under the hawthorn in soft mossy beds.
Sweet as the roses and blue as the sky,
Down there do the dear little violets lie;
Hiding their heads where they scarce may be seen,
By the leaves you may know where the violet hath been.
- John Moultrie, Violets
The fields are
snowbound no longer;
There are little blue lakes and flags of tenderest green.
The snow has been caught up into the sky--
So many white clouds--and the blue of the sky is cold.
Now the sun walks in the forest,
He touches the bows and stems with his golden fingers;
They shiver, and wake from slumber.
- Katherine
Mansfield, Very Early Spring, 1910
The force
that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
- Dylan Thomas
At the earliest ending of
winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside
Seemed like a sound in his mind.
He knew that he heard it,
A bird's cry, at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.
- Wallace Stevens, Not Ideas About the Thing but the Thing Itself
Those promises we heard
We heard in ignorance;
The numbered days we named,
And, in our innocence,
Assumed the beast was tamed.
On a bare limb, a bird,
Alone, arrived, with wings
Frozen, holds on and sings.
- Philip Levine, Mad Day in March
There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons–
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes—
- Emily Dickinson, #258
It was cold and windy, scarcely the day
to take a walk on that long beach
Everything was withdrawn as far as possible,
indrawn: the tide far out, the ocean shrunken,
seabirds in ones or twos.
The rackety, icy, offshore wind
numbed our faces on one side;
disrupted the formation
of a lone flight of Canada geese;
and blew back the low, inaudible rollers
in upright, steely mist.
- Elisabeth Bishop, The End of March
But maybe March is better
When all is done and said:
St. Patrick brings a promise,
A four-leaf-clover promise,
A green-all-over promise
Of springtime just ahead!
- Aileen Fisher, Wearing of
the Green
Random thoughts
and loneliness trouble me
but I am soothed by the
anticipation of cherry blossoms
and spring rain falling on my hut.
- Otagaki Rengetsu
For winter's rains and ruins
are over,
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.
The snow-flakes fall in showers,
The time is absent still,
When all Spring's beauteous flowers,
When all Spring's beauteous flowers
Our hearts with joy shall fill.
With lustre false and fleeting
The sun's bright rays are thrown;
The swallow's self is cheating:
The swallow's self is cheating,
And why? He comes alone!
- Goethe, March,
1817
A frog floats
belly up -
dead silence.
- Mike Garofalo, Cuttings
No one thinks of Winter when
the grass is green.
- Rudyard Kipling
in this crazy March
the winds blow hot and cold
with indecision
and my house is a tempest
of disordered underwear
- Laura
Maffei
Everything is
equal in the snow: all trees, all lawns, all streets,
all rooftops, all cars. Everything is white, white, white, as far as
you can see. Covered by snow, the well-kept and neglected
lawns look the same. The snow hides the shiny newness of a
just-bought car as effectively as it does the rust and dents of
a ten-year-old one. Everything looks clean and fresh and
unmarred by time or use. Snow, like the silent death it
counterfeits, is a great leveler.
- Adrienne
Ivey
As Scathach,as Morrigan
I greet you at the crossroads,
At this brightening turn on the wheel of the year.
Who are you, Hero, to meet me in challenge?
Why do you challenge the sword of the dawn?
Vernal Equinox
Rituals
Alive with bees -
radiant pink
peach blossoms.
- Michael
P. Garofalo, Cuttings
Last year's cotton-plants, desolately
bowing,
Tremble in the March-wind, ragged and forlorn;
Red are the hill-sides of the early ploughing,
Gray are the lowlands, waiting for the corn.
Earth seems asleep still, but she's only feigning;
Deep in her bosom thrills a sweet unrest.
Look where the jasmine lavishly is raining
Jove's golden shower into Danae's breast!
- Henry Van Dyke, Spring in the South
First day of spring--
I keep thinking about
the end of autumn.
-
Matsuo Basho
Snowdrops and
crocus herald the Spring
Heads held high in the icy wind,
Carpeted like a blanket of snow
Their gentle heads sway in the breeze that blows,
Beautiful flowers make garden bright
In hues of purple, gold and white.
- Barbara
Corwena Boon, Spring
Top of the morning
Is what we say
On March 17th
St. Patrick's Day.
Wear your green
And I am told,
If you catch a leprechaun
He'll give you his gold.
- Top O' The Morning
Apricots
died young in blossoms still nipples.
Frost cut them free, and their scattering made me
Mourn the child I had long ago;
So I wrote this poem.
- Chiao Meng, Apricots Died Young
For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about
to begin.....
But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten
through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt
to be paid.Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these
obstacles were my life.
- Alfred Souza
Winter is an etching,
Spring a watercolor,
Summer an oil painting,
Autumn a mosaic of them all.
- Stanley Horowitz
During the ceremonies of
initiation into the Ancient Mysteries,
it is supposed that the neophyte left the physical body in a trance
state, and in full consciousness, which he retained afterwards,
entered the subjective world and beheld all its wonders and
inhabitants; and that coming out of that world he was clothed
in a robe of sacred green to symbolize his own spiritual resurrection
and re-birth into real life — for he had penetrated the Mystery
of Death and was now an initiate.
– Walter Y. Evans Wentz
Although we saw the first
promise of spring at Candlemas in the
swelling buds, there were still nights of frost and darkness ahead.
Now spring is manifest. Demeter is reunited with her daughter,
Kore (the essence of spring), who has been in the Underworld
for six months and the earth once again teems with life. The month
of March contains holidays dedicated to all the great mother
goddesses: Astarte, Isis, Aprhrodite, Cybele and the Virgin Mary.
The goddess shows herself in the blossoms, the leaves on the
trees, the sprouting of the crops, the mating of birds, the birth of
young animals. In the agricultural cycle, it is time for planting.
We are assured that life will continue.
- Waverly Fitzgerald, Celebrating
the Spring Equinox
daybreak-
the flowerbed full
of new mushrooms
- Mark
Brooks
March
bustles in on windy feet
And sweeps my doorstep and my street.
She washes and cleans with pounding rains,
Scrubbing the earth of winter stains.
She shakes the grime from carpet green
Till naught but fresh new blades are seen.
Then, house in order, all neat as a pin,
She ushers gentle springtime in.
- Susan Reiner, Spring Cleaning
Time is one apricot blossom.
Space, a bee.
The Universe, honey.
And, the Goddess of Spring?
- Michael P. Garofalo, Cuttings
Lifeless in appearance, sluggish dazed spring approaches- They enter the new world naked, cold, uncertain of all save that they enter. All about them the cold, familiar wind- Now the grass, tomorrow the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf One by one objects are defined- It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf But now the stark dignity of entrance-Still, the profound change has come upon them: rooted, they grip down and begin to awaken - William Carlos Williams, Spring and All
Links and References
Celebrating the Spring Equinox
Cherry Blossoms
in Washington - History
Cuttings - March.
Haiku and short poems by Michael P.
Garofalo.
Earth Calendar - Wiccan Holidays
Earth Day (March 21st) Links - Open Directory
Greetings,
Lore and Customs for Springtime
March Holidays and Celebrations
March - Mystical World Wide Web
Mardi
Gras (Fat Tuesday) - Links
Native American Lore for
March
Old
French Sayings About March
Poems for a Long
Winter's Night
Quotes for Gardeners. Over
2,700 quotes arranged
by over 130 topics.
Saint Patrick's Day by Christina
O'Keeffe
Saint Patrick's Day - Yahoo Links
Saint
Patrick's Day - Google Links
Spring and
Easter Stories and Poems Good links and content for elementary
teachers.
Spring - Quotes, Poems, Sayings
and Quips for Gardeners
Spring: Links and Ideas for Teachers
Spring Poems by
Japanese Women
Spring - Vernal Equinox
Ceremonies
Traditional English Customs and Folktales of March
Winter - Quotes, Poems, Sayings and Quips for Gardeners
March Weather Lore
When March comes in like a
lion it goes out like a lamb,
when it comes in like a lamb, it goes out like a lion.
March Folklore
Astrological Signs: Pisces, February 19 - March 20
Astrological Signs: Aries,
March 21 - April 20
March Birthstones: Aquamarine
March Garden Chores
Red Bluff, North Sacramento Valley, California, USA
USDA Zone 9
March Gardening Chores and Activities in Red Bluff
Browsing and ordering from seed and garden catalogs.
Weeding, weeding, weeding.
Planting potted trees and shrubs.
Placing cold sensitive potted plants in protected areas or indoors.
Prune and mulch dormant perennials.
Repairing and sharpening tools.
Fertilize with 20-9-9 or 15-15-15.
Trees without leaves need little or no watering.
Planting seeds in containers in the house or greenhouse.
Keeping winter hardwood cuttings moist.
Watering as needed.
Reading gardening books and magazines.
Weeding the vegetable garden.
Mowing as needed.
Removing dead trees and branches.
Painting trunks of new bareroot trees to prevent scalding.
Tying vines to trellis' and fences.
Sitting in the warm sun.
March Gardening Chores and
Tips for U.S.A. Zones
Oregon State University March Tips
Earth Wise Creations March Tips - Zone 9
Seasonal Garden Chores - Links
Top Garden Projects for March in the Pacific Northwest by Ed Hume
52 Weeks in the California Garden by Richard Smaus
March Gardening Tips from Ortho
The Garden Helper Tips for March - Northern U.S.
Gardening Tips - March - New York Botanical Garden
More Quotes
for
Gardeners
Spirituality and Concerns of the Soul
Simplicity and the Simple Life
Pulling Onions: Quips and
Observations of a Gardener
By Michael P. Garofalo
Haiku Poetry - Links and Bibliography
Clichés for Gardeners and Farmers
The History of Gardening
Timeline
From Ancient Times to the 20th Century
Short Poems by Michael P. Garofalo
Awards and Recognition for this Web Site
The
Mental and Spiritual Aspects of Gardening:
Bibliography and Resources
Quotes
for Gardeners
Quotes, Sayings, Proverbs, Poetry, Maxims, Quips, Clichés,
Adages, Wisdom
A Collection Growing to Over 2,700 Quotes, Arranged by 130 Topics
Many of the Documents Include Recommended Readings and Internet Links.
Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo
Distributed on the Internet by Michael P. Garofalo
I
Welcome Your Comments, Ideas, Contributions, and Suggestions
E-mail Mike Garofalo in Red Bluff, California
A Short Biography of Mike
Garofalo
March - Quotes, Poems,
Folklore, Customs, Garden Chores.
85K, 29 March 2003
This document was first distributed on the Internet in March 2002.
This document will be expanded and improved in 2003.
March - Mirror Webpage ::: March - Mirror Webpage
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