One hour is a pebble in the shoe, the insignificant that will not be silenced. Put in perspective it is nothing, this shift of time. With all the great world’s spinning, how could it be important? It is only a matter of accounting, right? A shift from one column to another.

But so exquisitely tuned are we, so finely adapted to familiar segments of darkness and light, that one hour brings a yelp of pain or a cry of joy. Sandpaper-eyed mornings, loose-limbed evenings. A stark jump to the cold days of early spring.

The black ice on the driveway and the snow on the deck makes it hard to take this hour seriously. This hour will not catapult us to spring. It is the alarm set too early, tugging us to ragged wakefulness in the middle of the night.