An Ode to Plus 2

I heard a whisper on the wind.
"Low tonight minus 15,
high tomorrow plus 2"

How can he stand there so blase, so unmoved; I am convinced that the weatherman has no soul.

Plus 2 is wonderful!
It makes me smile and it gives me hope.
I am excited to see an end to mittens and an end to scarves and scraping and sh-sh-sh-shivering and shoveling, and that other nasty "s" word.

The frozen city is slowly stirring, the magic is beginning.

Rock hard roadways and frozen convoluted sidewalks soften into squishy gritty slush. Grimy puddles conceal bone-jarring craters. Winter white snowbanks degrade into jagged grubby gravel heaps.

It is a mess perhaps, but a glorious mess.

On the sidewalks bundled and bowed figures transform, their shuffles becoming strides; their hunched isolation now turning faces towards the sun, and towards each other.

It shames me to say that I am fickle when it comes to the adoration of plus 2. Were it perhaps to show its happy little face in rainy June or balmy July, it would be properly shunned and loudly cursed. Then it would know how minus 25 feels. No-one writes an ode to minus 25.

A scent is on the breeze; take a frost free breath; breathe deeply. Spring is in the air. Sadly, the first waking smells are not crocuses and they are not daffodils.

I glance at the dog, and sigh.