Election Calendar

May 5 2011

It is election season.

Early spring

with brown lawns, and bare trees.

And signs sprouting in party colours,

boldly proclaiming

allegiance, identity

engagement.

Dirty ice

persists in the shadows

in pitted granular mounds,

desperately hanging on.

Like a war-horse politician,

who could never hold

a real job.

The buds are small, hard, tightly clenched.

Like penny-pinching citizens,

who feel over-taxed

and under-served.

The sky is a uniform grey,

as predictable as the suit and tie

that adorns the beaming candidate,

glad-handing surly voters.

And as leaden as the speech he gave

to the local Rotarians,

the party line

and platitudes and boiler plate

we find so reassuring.

Loads of leaves

are slowly decomposing,

matted together on unraked lawns.

Like the largesse

dispensed

by spendthrift politicians.

And like taxes and death

election day eventually comes,

winner take all.

Who is generous in victory,

thrilled, honoured

in debt.

And the gracious concession speech

of his rival,

he so humbly accepts.

Followed by summer

when we’ll have had more than enough

of politics.

Then winter, again,

the season of discontent

and broken promises.

When a beautiful blanket of snow

mercifully covers-up

our sins.

When the frost

puts a stop

to all that phoney posturing.

And hot air

can’t outlast the cold.