The Underbelly of Spring
In Vermont, they have two seasons:
Winter, plus a week of bad sledding.
In Puerto Rico, you wouldn’t know spring
if it rose up and bit you in your tanned ass.
In Wisconsin, it’s freeze, then thaw, then
freeze again… then roast in your bedding.
In Upstate NY, you go to school to get
ready for finals and sweat through class.
Spring is an unpredictable, mercurial,
unsentimental storm of hot and cold.
April may shower, but May does not
guarantee flowers or blue skies.
May is here, yet Spring has snowstorms
hidden in the seasonal envelope’s fold.
It’s muddy. It’s messy and inconvenient.
Spring hides behind a sunny-side disguise.
© 2013 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil
For Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Izy wanted the truth about Spring… all the bad parts. I’ve been through the season in every place mentioned, and I guarantee that I never put away the snow shovel until after Mother’s Day. We once had a surprise storm on (no joke) May Day, and it dumped three feet of wet snow, made me pull little Riley back to the house from the ditched car on a plastic sled, and still the Jeeps and SUVs were out on the road doing donuts. That’s the storm that made possible the picture of Riley above! Whodathunkit?
Also at my poetic all-season resort, Poets United. Peace, Amy
Sharp Little Pencil 
Polly Robinson
My word Amy, our springtime can be unpredictable but not like the ones you refer to. An interesting and informative poem, I like it very much.
vivinfrance
And boy, have you nailed it (the truth about Spring, I mean). The only constant is the merciful increase in daylight hours.
kaykuala
In our part of the world it’s a mixture of spring/summer all the time. We long for Autumn brown and cold winter, anytime at all! Nicely Amy!
Hank
Hank
Roger Green
true enough: freeze warnings and 70s in Albany, NY, all in the same week!
McGuffy Ann
So very true. Spring is fickle.
hedgewitch
All too true. Love the Vermont line–my husband’s mother’s family is from there, and it’s a beautiful place to which I wanted to move, but the spouse had one too many childhood Vermont winters and springs–there was no way he was going back. So now we just roast in a six month summer. ;_)
Teresa
This spring certainly has been that crazy snowstorm one day and sweating the next.
Kim Nelson
You’ve experienced it all! With a couple of exceptions, all my springs have been spent in Southern California and Southern Arizona, thus limiting my exposure.
Marian
true enough.
Sherry Blue Sky
The truth about spring, well-told. Love the photo of Riley.
Susan
I kind of like the unpredictability when I am not being grumpy. Spring enters like I do at times, hiding, hiding. Beautiful poem, a cubist array.
Kerry O'Connor
Oof! Too much Winter would get me down. Where I live we have one week of Spring, then it’s Summer again for 8 months.
Mama Zen
I love the way you structured this, Amy! Very cool.
ihatepoetry
Wonderful observations, my sistah! Used to have much more predictable seasons, but thank global warming for that! Oy, I need to buy sunscreen and slickers! Love you, el Mosk-a-bro
Helen
You pretty much described Minnesota too … great write, Amy.
Herotomost
Amen….Spring here in Phoenix is Summer, and Autumn is summer, so sucks sometimes. Great look at the underbelly loved it! Great interview too!
isadoragruye
Hiya! I like what you’ve done here, capturing the faults of season which is suppose to be a delight. Your first lines had my laughing and I didn’t stop smiling the whole way through. Great poem, Amy!!!!
I HAVE A VOICE
wonderful description Amy! The dimension and breadth of such dichotomies is fabulous !
Kay, Alberta, Canada
Fabulous, Amy. People here in Alberta tell me (I’m from the west coast) that it can snow in any month of the year, and this is southern Alberta, so think Montana, not the Northwest Territory.
I haven’t seen snow in June, July or August, but I did see a huge dump of it on May 5 a few years ago. I don’t know about September, but I’ve seen it in October.
Sigh.
K
Listening Daisy
This was a funny poem, it made me laugh! You had such great word use and humor in this.
Hannah Gosselin
SO true!! Amy, I love the different faces/phases of spring you bring!! especially these two lines:
“Spring is an unpredictable, mercurial,
unsentimental storm of hot and cold.”
Love that! 🙂
purplepeninportland
Love this one, Amy. Biting as a cold spring day!