Here shines a February day
at fifty-five degrees,
whose fish-scale cirrus clouds are stretched
across the sky and trees.

Then, dark-blue cumulus clouds come
and crowd the Southern sky.
Now, five o'clock, the low sun glows
a red'ning golden eye.

How quickly even the best day
in February fades.
Perfection, when it comes, won't stay.
We chase, but it evades...

Herb Wahlsteen was a finalist in the 1989 Yale Series of Younger Poets contest, placed 3rd in the Writer's Digest 77th Annual Writing Competition, Rhyming Category, and has had poems published in: Long Island Quarterly, the Great South Bay Magazine, The Lyric magazine, Paumanok Interwoven, Suffolk County Poetry Review, Bards Annual, Form Quarterly, Bards against Hunger, Poets to Come, String Poet (translations: 2 from the French, 2 from the Spanish), and Measure magazine.