Spring, in Dave Bonta's poem, arrives without blossom or birdsong. It arrives as a kite, and the speaker's response is to reach for a coat. Beyond the title, there are only fifteen syllables, yet a small drama of time, childhood and habit fits inside them.
The title, "First day of spring," does real work. It is the poem's true first line, and it names the season so the three lines beneath it don't have to. Once spring is established, "my son's old kite" can be read through it. Kites belong to open ground and March winds, to days worth going outside for. But the kite is "old," and that one word moves it out of the present. It is not being flown. It is being noticed, perhaps leaning in a corner or turning up in a cupboard. The poem never says where, and the gap seems deliberate. We are handed an object and left to imagine the room around it.
The first line is also a fragment with no verb, so nothing happens in it. The action begins only in line two, "I put on my velvet coat," and between the two lines there is no "and," no "so," no punctuation at all. The reader has to supply the connection. Does the sight of the kite make the speaker want to dress up, as if answering the season? Or does the speaker turn away from the kite's promise of play toward the sensible business of "town"? Both readings hold. This leap from one image to the next, with the link left unexplained, is how haiku usually work, and the poem behaves much like one. It is leaner than the traditional five-seven-five pattern, though: counting syllables gives four, seven, four. The compression suits the subject, as if the poem had been folded up small, like a kite put away for the year.
The heart of the poem is the contrast between its two objects. A kite is paper, string and air, made to be let go of, though it is always tethered. Velvet is heavy, soft and a little formal, a fabric for being seen in. One object belongs to the son and to play, the other to the speaker and to the adult world of errands. Yet velvet is not a drab choice. It suggests some pleasure, even vanity, so the speaker isn't simply trudging off to duty. Putting it on may be a small way of marking the day. The coat also hints that spring has not yet made itself felt, and that winter's chill lingers on its first morning.
The sound of the poem is quiet but deliberate. There is no end rhyme (kite, coat, town), but long vowels echo through the lines. "My," "kite," "I" and "my" share one long *i*, while "old," "coat" and "go" share a long *o*. Crisp *t* sounds tap along from "kite" to "put," "velvet," "coat," "to," "to" and "town." The last line is made of four plain monosyllables, "to go to town," and their steady, walking beat makes the ending feel like routine. There may even be a faint echo of the idiom "to go to town," which means to do something with gusto. Here the phrase is meant literally, but the echo hints at the little festivity of the velvet.
What makes the poem significant is how much feeling it leaves unsaid. The poem never mentions a child growing up, or time passing, or a parent's small pang at seeing a toy outlast its use. It gives us only the word "old," the possessive "my son's," and the speaker's quick turn to the next task. The poem suggests that seasons are felt first in household objects and only later in the landscape. The emotion is carried entirely by what sits side by side. The final image also matters. The poem ends on "town," outward bound, so it leaves the house with the speaker while the kite stays behind. The reader is left to decide whether that is a loss, a relief, or simply what a spring morning looks like to someone who has put on a good coat.