The shortest month of the year is behind us. Here in New York’s backyard, Spring-like weather followed one of the coldest streaks in recent memory. Who knows what next week will bring? After all, we’ve entered the month of March, where anything can happen! Frank Tassone here, your host for this week’s Haibun Monday, and today, let’s talk about a little thing called March Madness!

Counting on warm weather? Watch out for Winter leaving like a lion. Unless, of course, it limps off like a lamb. March Madness. Watch for narcissus to sprout—followed by a sudden frost! March Madness. Are you a fan of American College Basketball? Welcome to the arrival of the Tournament. March Madness!

Merrill alludes to other wonders of the march season in her own Haibun Monday March Madness prompt from 2019, particularly the Lewis Carroll variety:

“Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it did not appear, and after a minute or two she walked on in the direction in which the March Hare was said to live. “I’ve seen hatters before,” she said to herself: “the March Hare will be much the most interesting, and perhaps, as this is May, it won’t be raving mad – at least not so mad as it was in March.”

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, Chapter 6.

& of course, poets have celebrated March, peculiar madness or not:

March Moon

Langston Hughes

1901 –

1967

The moon is naked.
The wind has undressed the moon.
The wind has blown all the cloud-garments
Off the body of the moon
And now she’s naked,
Stark naked.

But why don’t you blush,
O shameless moon?
Don’t you know
It isn’t nice to be naked?

From The Weary Blues (Alfred A. Knopf, 1926) by Langston Hughes. This poem is in the public domain. 

March Evening

Amy Lowell

1874 –

1925

Blue through the window burns the twilight;
  Heavy, through trees, blows the warm south wind.
Glistening, against the chill, gray sky light,
  Wet, black branches are barred and entwined.

Sodden and spongy, the scarce-green grass plot
  Dents into pools where a foot has been.
Puddles lie spilt in the road a mass, not
  Of water, but steel, with its cold, hard sheen.

Faint fades the fire on the hearth, its embers
  Scattering wide at a stronger gust.
Above, the old weathercock groans, but remembers
  Creaking, to turn, in its centuried rust.

Dying, forlorn, in dreary sorrow,
  Wrapping the mists round her withering form,
Day sinks down; and in darkness to-morrow
  Travails to birth in the womb of the storm.
 

This poem is in the public domain. 

March Walk

Stephen A. Allen

Snow glare bright enough to bring tears to the eyes, but not for long: grass starting to reappear in thin spots in the whiteness. Out for a simple walk downtown, checking what survived the winter, what didn’t. A branch gone here and there, a sidewalk buckled that was smooth last fall. No big changes. Only in us.

favorite café    breezes steal the coffee steam from our lips

Courtesy of Contemporary Haibun Online 18.2

Whether you are tournament fanatics ready for broken hearts and brackets, seasonal sensationalists luxuriating in weather extremes, or Lewis Carroll stans, March Madness has something for each of you! Embrace the madness! Write your haibun alluding to March Madness as it resonates with you.

New to haibun? The form consists of one to a few paragraphs of prose—usually written in the present tense—that evoke an experience and are often non-fictional/autobiographical. They may be preceded or followed by one or more haiku—nature-based, using a seasonal image—that complement without directly repeating what the prose stated.

New to dVerse? Here is what you do:

• Write a haibun alluding to March Madness.
• Post it on your personal site/blog.
• Include a link back to dVerse in your post.
• Copy your link onto the Mr. Linky.
• Remember to click the small checkbox about data protection.
• Read and comment on some of your fellow poets’ work.
• Like and leave a comment below if you choose to do so.
• Have fun!