with your cargo of zithers

I've been feeling pretty crappy all day (headache, cramps, general icky malaise) and I almost went to bed without posting a poem. But then I thought, well, maybe a little Rita Dove would make the day a little better.

Snow would be the easy
way out—that softening
sky like a sigh of relief
at finally being allowed
to yield. No dice.
We stack twigs for burning
in glistening patches
but the rain won't give.

So we wait, breeding
mood, making music
of decline. We sit down
in the smell of the past
and rise in a light
that is already leaving.
We ache in secret,
memorizing

a gloomy line
or two of German.
When spring comes
we promise to act
the fool. Pour,
rain! Sail, wind,
with your cargo of zithers!

—Rita Dove, "November for Beginners," Poetry Magazine, November, 1981.