Pull me from this winter coma

March, you vex me.

You are a tease, a taunt, a passive agressive yes and no and not yet. The only way to get through this passage bridging winter and spring is to eat, drink, nap, and read. It was in the throes of these vices that I found March Afternoon, a poem by Sandy Longhorn. 

Stun me, she writes. Pull me from this winter coma.

Can she call it, or what? 

March Afternoon

Emergency flare of a sun,
                                                      an empty sky.

Wind gusts ruffle the remains of last year's tall grasses —

                         the stand of ornamental pampas
                              and the pond rushes gone brown and dry.

I am talking to the hawk and the horizon when I say:

                                                                   Stun me.
Pull me from this winter coma.
Cleave me open
                           like sod split by the plow.
                                                                             Lay me bare.

The red wasps hang in the air,
                                              dangerous question marks.
                    The sun slides toward the tree line,

collides with a forming cloud —
                                                             a muscular light blooms.

— Sandy Longhorn
from Blood Almanac