You are cold to the touch oh moody one.

You offer so much potential but in your sullen distance

You sometimes forget that you are here to have fun

and a different face to your sister’s bleak resistance.

Like some petulant teenager rebelling against its parents scorn

you rage and blind, leaving a northern blanket of unfathomable white,

screaming to anyone who listens that you wish you’d not been born

and cursing them for their folly as they gaze upon you with hopeful sight.

Yet February there is the rub, there is a deep greatness within you,

though your temper be short

and your days shorter too.

Don’t be ruined by Napoleon’s complex and seize the vital the clue,

for you are the herald of March and all that is brought

as the days grow longer, light relief and the thought of skies so blue.

Ian D. Hall 2015.