Friday, March 05, 1999

March roared in like a lion last week, complete with wind, rain, bone-chilling temperatures and slishy snow.

Where was all this when it was January? We were ready then. We were armed with parkas and boots and scarves. By now, most of those items have been relegated to the back of the closet.

People aren’t the only ones who have been fooled by nature’s on-again off-again flirtation with spring.

The unseasonably warm and sunny weather has fooled the tulips and daffodils we all planted with such care last fall. Many already are peeking out of the ground by several inches.

Those hopeful green stalks surely had no idea that winter wasn’t through with us yet.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac says March will be colder than normal with an average temperature of 41 degrees. That compares to an average temperature of 35 degrees in February and 31 degrees in January, which traditionally is our coldest month.

Precipitation is predicted to be about average-4 inches-in March and below average in April. That is good news for those of us who remember too clearly the April flooding of several years age.

Fancy weather predictions aside, the worst of winter simply has to be behind us. The calendar is on our side.

Since the month debuted with lion-like characteristics, it surely will exit like a lamb.

That would be good news.

While winter soon may be a memory, it is alive and well in the creative minds of Candace Picklesimer’s sixth-grade class at Symmes Valley Multi-Level School.

Mrs. Picklesimer recently asked her students to write poems that "painted winter." Here are several of their efforts (we will run more in future weeks, space permitting).

WINTER IMAGES

By Lindsay Long

Snow is a blanket

Falling to the ground

Wind, like angel’s wings,

Brushes against my face.

Trees are glittering ice towers,

High above my head.

My cheeks, red apples,

My nose, a cherry,

Fire, hot chocolate for my hands.

WINTER

By Amanda Allen

Icicles hang

From my porch

Like limbs from a tree.

Snow streams

Down from Heaven

Like confetti.

Wind howls

Like ghosts in

A horror movie.

The temperature

A cold freezer.

My breath

Is nothing more

Than a cloud

Of water vapor.

Winter is such

Splendor!

RAIN

By Megan Payne

A cold rain is falling

The rain is falling like a big pool

of water

Bounding down towards the grass

which it wets

Making the hard dry earth turn to

mud.

I like to walk in the rain.

I like to feel the cold rain hit my

back

Like strong needles wanting to dig

into my skin

To be free from the cold.

I like to feel the soft moist earth under my feet.

This shuts me out from the world

And puts me in my own little

world.

No one around me, no one to bug

me, just me.

Just me and the rain.`

Jennifer Allen is publisher of The Ironton Tribune