Sometimes it melts in April

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As of last Tuesday, several mounds of snow stubbornly remained in my yard, defiled by dirt, dogs, disintegration. It took three days of nearly 90-degree weather to finally finish it all off.

Then on Sunday there was an attempt to pile it back up. This being north, it happens.

Mostly because I knew the effort wouldn't take, I didn't mind it all that much. It was satisfying to watch the snow fall. Round about March or April each year, I get sentimental over that particular visual effect, knowing I might not see it again for six months. Having been in the company of very senior citizens, I'm also aware that one day a person can watch the snow fall, and it will be for the last time.

These thoughts represent my general emotional range regarding winter. On one end, mild appreciation; on the other, utter disdain.

I know that many Minnesotans deeply love winter. Many of them are people I'm fond of, so far, and I'd hate for a matter of taste to be a cause of estrangement. Not when there are so many other options.

But if I'm honest, I must say that my feelings about winter cluster on the cynical side — with transient swings toward innocence and wonder.

On the comforting side, I'm convinced that a fresh snowfall is as good for the mind and soul as watching a dog or cat curl up on a cushion, content. You might even be able to quantify it in terms of body chemistry. Someone probably has.

But those animals are the same ones that later will eat something they shouldn't have and will puke it up on a porous fabric, following a long, rowdy warmup, but not quite long enough for you to do something about it, most likely just as you're falling asleep.

And that snow is the same substance that will have to be shoveled, somewhere, most likely just when you need to go somewhere. So you'll drive over it first, and it will become less tractable.

Enzymatic cleaners work pretty well in the first circumstance; snowblowers, I suppose, for the second. But my garage is a graveyard for small engines. Ineptitude or impatience on my part? Wait, wait — don't tell me.

Yet on several mornings this waning winter season, we woke to frosting-laden trees. Beautiful. But less so the fallen branches that followed, and the proportional damage to the canopies.

Nonetheless, when it happened this April Fools' Day, I was transported — back to the 1980 Winter Olympics, when we were allowed to duck out of seventh-grade gym class to watch some of the hockey, and to that peppy theme song by Chuck Mangione, which I spent the morning listening to along with other songs of the era. I related this feeling to neighbors who offered to help me with cleanup, and I believe they were perplexed.

But if you think I'm a winter romantic at heart, know this: Anything a person can do for fun outdoors in that season is invariably more laborious than the comparable summer activity, and is done with greater sensory discomfort, and at greater personal risk.

Back before the pandemic — also before small payments went cashless — I was getting coffee at a place that used dual tip jars as a polling method. The decision du jour was "winter/summer." This was in August, and winter was winning in a big way. Recalling the effects of priming — in the psychological sense; it's of little use to me with small engines — I was tempted to put a fiver in "summer." I should've done it. Trying to change minds comes at a cost.

But I didn't, and the question remains: Am I a real Minnesotan, or what?

Akin to the angry-child lament of "I didn't ask to be born!" is this of my own: I didn't ask to be born here. But I was, and I remain, despite flirting with elsewhere. And aside from all the other reasons to be grateful for being alive in this time and place — don't ever forget how many there are — the change in seasons is something I appreciate. Every month has a different ambience, a different quality of light, a different energy.

One evening a decade ago, on the occasion of another April snowfall, I sensed a fleeting, incongruent perfection about that blanket of white as lit by the 8 p.m. sun. (Thanks, daylight saving time!) So I wrote a poem about it.

The broad substance of the poem is irrelevant here. (Among the many reasons to write poetry is that you can pilfer from it for future purposes.) But the ending lines, admittedly derivative, stick with me:

This being north after the equinox,

it is light late, although the light is dying.

Although, at the moment, it dies right.

Although, it is but a moment.

A bit morose, I suppose, but remember that mutability meets the light and the dark in the same measure.

David Banks is at David.Banks@startribune.com.