Well, the long gray month of January is over and now one of my favorite months of the year is here.

I love February. That may have something to do with my love of the number 4...after all, most years, it has an even 4 weeks, and even when there's an extra day because of leap year like this year, it's cool because it's like getting a bonus day. Kind of like the day in the fall when we get the extra hour because of daylight savings time.

Time for a little poetry...

There comes a little space between the south
side of a boulder
and the snow that fills the woods around it.
Sun heats the stone, reveals
a crescent of bare ground: brown ferns,
and tufts of needles like red hair,
acorns, a patch of moss, bright green....

I sank with every step up to my knees,
throwing myself forward with a violence
of effort, greedy for unhappiness--
until by accident I found the stone,
with its secret porch of heat and light,
where something small could luxuriate, then
turned back down my path, chastened and calm.

Depression in Winter, by Jane Kenyon.