Oh. February. You–the second month of 2011. You've done it again. Delivered your annual numerical tease.

First, You dump upon my already frozen body more white stuff. I think. January and December snowed so much, I lose track of it.

On day 14, You blossom in my loved one's heart succulent dark chocolate and ruby red roses.

Three days later, you mark the birth of my widowed father. Eighty-eight years and nearly a fortnight he lived. A will of Iron with organs made of same–especially his old, old heart. Yet, Parkinson's trumped the old man.

By the time he left this Earth, your Spring sister had come. You generously shared your blanket of sun with her until the weekend we buried him. Then, wicked gusts of Your Winter blew in. Day-and-night rain followed plenty with unkind chill. Even fat, wet snow dusted the leafless mountains and splattered the windshield after our official Goodbyes to Daddy were said and I made way through the mountains above his Carolina birthplace and back to my Tennessee home.

Oh, February. You are the month that presents my deceased Mother's favorite "holiday" and celebrates  my late father's birthday. This year, sibling cellular calls in the days and night before and after then bore touch-and-go news of Daddy's waning life.

At last: He made it. He made it to the other side. To the next life. Just as You tease of a month ended and made way for March. Somehow last night, walking in March cold, I suddenly realized you'd up and gone. Once again. So abruptly. Oh, February, you tease of a month. You've replaced yourself with March. Until now the last six days were just numbers on a late turned calendar page. Awareness not yet taken root. She's here. March is here. Without Daddy.

As March and her sisters without fail make good on promised magic, I'll remember it was Daddy who taught me to love your nature. For my fondest memory of him was walking: Sunday evenings, my small hand in the largess of his own. Our ancient property dotted with 100-year-oaks, pines and other species plenty. He, telling me of their propagation and how to tell one from another by their scruffy or smooth bark and artfully shaped leaves. Musically, he'd recite Joyce Kilmer's "I think I shall never see a poem as lovely as a tree."

That must be why I love so much the bold and graceful architecture of a tree and do proclaim in frequent admiration, melodramatically to anyone nearby: Trees. ARE. Poetry. And then when I do say those words communicating how nature's art has soulfully expressed itself in kind, I remember. I remember it was Daddy who taught me, preciously, to love the beautiful poetry of trees. Whether naked in February. Or dressed by the last days of the quick following March.

Photo: Leisa A. Hammett, Frozen Leaves, 2010. While I love "Link Within," it's choices, see below, are not always logical. So, here's my chosen link to my ode to March, 2010: "In Like a Lion." The seaons vividly remind me, a poor student, how cyclical our lives. And, to: Be present. Be grateful.