First Day of Spring?

We are one-half hour away from Spring's official arrival (11:15 a.m. CDT) and we've had snow showers off and on all morning. So much for this portion of Algernon Charles Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon:

For Winter's rains and ruins are over,
And all the seasons of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the Spring begins.

These were my daffies six years ago on St. Patrick's Day.....

.....and here they are this year.
As Henry Van Dyke said in his book Fisherman's Luck: "The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month."

Because he is one of my favorite poets, here is Ted Kooser's poem about the first day of Spring:

March 20

     The vernal equinox.

How important it must be
to someone
that I am alive, and walking,
and that I have written
these poems.
This morning the sun stood
right at the end of the road
and waited for me.


Today may not have the feel of spring about it, but that day will be here soon. I will be glad for it - and happy to be here for one more Spring.