Stunned
PANJWAI, Afghanistan — Stalking from home
to home, a U. S. Army sergeant methodically
killed at least 16 civilians, 9 of them children,
…early on Sunday.
—The New York Times, March 11, 2012
Saffron daffodils three and four deep
line the low-slung factory’s white-washed
wall like spectators along a parade route
watching as we wander to an art exhibit.
They have exploded three weeks early
and seem surprised to see our passing,
their breeze-tossed faces long rows
of ruffled O’s aglow in the spotlight
of the daylight-saving sun. We all
were stunned that mid-week morning
several oddly mellow days ago to awaken
to the Southwest desert’s weather skewed
toward winter Michigan, to children heading
for school in T-shirts and plastic sandals,
our spring relief reserved for late April
arriving in force in early March. It’s eerily
just like summer, with highs near eighty,
and as we walk I’m astounded by my body,
how it knows to bully my sullen disposition
to get over it as if I’d already survived
the blizzards, shoveling, and lingering slush.
But it’s also spring break and warmer by
fifteen degrees than Daytona or San Diego,
and last Sunday, even across the ice-cold lake,
short-sleeved Chicagoans shopped in droves,
and tulips in the short-fenced beds beside
the bus stops were already half-a-foot tall.
In sympathy I’ve warned my Afghani students
not to fall for this unseasonable withdrawal
of the arctic’s brutal jet-stream occupation,
that they likely haven’t seen the vicious last
of what assaults us every winter, what
most certainly will bewilder them once again.
