Dumb From Winter

Dawn hasn’t warmed us
for months.  It might as well
have stayed dark all winter
for all the credit we gave the sun
for coming up, for if there’s no warmth
in sunlight, why have it?  That’s been
the prevailing opinion this year,
as it is every year.  Even as the days
have gotten longer,
we have continued to complain.

The hyacinths
know better, as always,
and have been employing
that incremental heat
for their own ends
for quite a while now,
trusting in
the inevitability of what was to come. 
Today, or yesterday, they broke through
beside the walk.

Their sudden arrival tells us
that it’s time for spring at last,
and all at once mornings feel downright
balmy.  We’re stupid this way,
forgetting every winter
that spring will come,
and that we’ll be surprised
when it happens.

Thank God
for the hyacinths giving us a heads up,
or we’d look even dumber
with our mouths hanging open
a few weeks from now
when, as always,
everything else pops.