Waiting for Spring
Jim Tilley

After being snowbound all winter, just when
I think it’s over, yet awaken to more of the stuff
to clear off my car in the driveway, I wonder
when I will be able to call it the start of spring.

Some people measure it by the first baseball game,
some by crocuses thrusting through the softened
garden soil, some by the brilliant yellow of forsythia,
but I declare victory only when I can begin to

walk my favorite trails in the woods without boots,
and without getting my sneakers all mucked up,
when I can still see clear to the reservoir
because the trees haven’t yet fully leafed out,

even more by when I can retire the bird feeder
to the basement because there’s enough wild seed
for the returning evening grosbeaks to discover
on their own. And when I spot the first butterfly.