March birthdays in Ohio

for Mary and the rest of us

At times I’ve been jealous of folks whose birthdays fall in the summer.  

They get to have picnic parties and hang out on the patio until 

well after dark, sipping drinks and talking to friends around the fire. 

They even get their names printed up on the outfield message board

at Dragon’s games.  March babies?  No such luck. 

Our birthdays are often gray and brisk, if not downright cold. 

We might see snow fall on our birthday.  Or sleet.  Or freezing rain. 

Some mighty nasty storms can be blown up in the March sky. 

Dayton’s big flood in 1913 came in March.  ‘Nuf said.  

Then again, we might get a mild day, a day to wear sandals. 

An early March birthday might see crocus making first emersion 

in a flower bed out back, or notice of the yellow haze 

willows put out when the sap starts to flow. 

By mid-month, daylight savings begins already, the culprit 

that causes late sleepers to curse the concept of spring ahead.

Morning persons loving the earlier sunrise will be plunged back 

into darkness for another month until earth’s tilting catches up. 

March birthdays are almost always spent indoors where it is still 

warm and dry and safe from the weather.  But as Pisces flows into Aries,

the promise of a re-greening world reaches into us and re-awakens

some sense deep in our core that the season has been weathered

and the true beginning of a new year is upon us.


Tom Schaefer
6 March 2011