Lenox Dale — What else is there to write about but our early and enveloping season. I have adopted the Celtic calendar so, for me, winter is one-third over. In the Celtic calendar, the Solstice is not the beginning but the middle of winter. These were written in my car during the afternoon of Thursday, December 5.
Snow On Birch Against Blue Sky
After half a week
Of gray and snow, this is our
Momentary gift.
The Season’s First Icicles
Hanging Thickly off
Everyone’s roofs — will these
Remain until spring?
It’s not 2:30
And the sun’s low, as
If hastening sunset
Already, scratchy
Edged potholes, have dug their way
Deeply into streets.
It’s At 2:30
What!??? Snowing again?
I can’t stand this! It’s endless.
Even if it’s light.
At 2:45
Now, big circling flakes
Lots of snow in the air. Cast
By Hollywood?
Over by 3. Just
Weak winds, gray clouds, a few drops
And that winter feel.
Then, the next morning, Friday, December 6, I wake up at 2:15 in the middle of the night, thinking about watching the antidote to the gray and drab and shrinking.
Twenty-First Century House
Boughs of holly are
Not timely. Rick decks his halls
With strings of tree lights.
After my neighbor, who has taken to decorating his front yard summer and winter, this year, has completed his lighting job, he stands in front of his snowy lawn with his camera.
Twinkling lights festoon
Rick’s house front, roof and bushes.
He shoots a “Housie.”
I think, again, of yesterday afternoon.
I was wrong. Snow fell
Without stop. It just did not
Stick to anything.
When I wake up at 7 in the real morning and hear the long, detailed weather report, I feel… What can I say?
More snow predicted.
10 a. m. to 10 p. m.
Snow, again, all day.
Am I a poet
Or a weatherwoman? As
A haikuist — both.
A couple of hours later, Mutzl, my little fluffy white dog, and I go out for a walk. We meet my neighbor Rick out with Glacier, his gigantic white winter weather dog, one of Mutzl’s best friends.
Putting Up The Lights
“An hour and a half.
Fast. The lights on the bushes?
They’re, like, netting.”
