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Drooping mimosas,

bent like old beggars,

weighted down with icy teardrops

presage the possibility of

snapping limbs and downed lines,

no heat, no Internet.

 

This so-called accumulation ain’t even an inch.

Up North this icy sneeze ain’t nothing,

a sprinkling, a dusting.

School kids at 0 centigrade

probably  line up in Connecticut

outside the Cafeterorium,

like little dragons, their breaths vapor,

their heads hooded,

their hands gloved or mittened.

 

Not at school our young ones.  They’re

outside celebrating a snow day,

scraping crunchy white veneer

to make a stunted sleet man –

Lilliputian, malformed,

a tiny Alexander Pope sort of construction.

 

Many have never seen snow –

or what’s passing for snow –

so they’re Christmas Eve excited.

Later, if the power goes, they’ll enjoy

the lighting of hurricane lamps,

but I sure hope not.

 

Jesus, today has to be my mother’s

very last snow day, and come to think of it,

I’ll not see many more myself,

down here in Dixie, so let the lights flicker,

let the night turn black.

Let nature force us to feel the cold,

to feel alive, cocooned beneath roofs,

comforters, covers and sheets

beneath the dazzle of unseen stars.