Running for Cover

Jan 1 2016

Winters are warmer than I recall.

You can no longer count on the ice,

clear down

since freeze-up.

Wet snow

seems to weigh on the earth.

Not the hard dry stuff

from before,

when the world could breathe

and wore it lightly.

It's the humidity, they say

that makes the sky dull

the cold unbearable.

That cuts like a knife

to the bone

the marrow

the soul.

I am older now,

and you'd think I would welcome this reprieve.

But a hard winter

is like all good things;

pure, in its integrity

sure of itself.

So unlike this,

wishy-washy

unpredictable;

the seasons, converging,

the earth

at its tipping point.

Especially when blizzards thunder

December pours.

When the snowman

is an eyeless scarecrow;

shoulders slumped,

roly-poly bum

hollowed out.

When footsteps have crusted
slush, hardened to ice.

And asphalt is bare,

black-top

as warm in the sun

as early summer.

When buds opened, then froze,

a freak storm

that turned suddenly.

And when white Christmas

has migrated north.

While the rabbits, in their camouflaged coats

are running for cover

on dun-coloured ground.

It's true, winters are getting warmer. This one, especially (at least so far): presumably, a combination of climate change and a particularly strong El Niño effect. And especially noticeable after last year's unseasonably cold winter; which was apparently a result of the polar vortex slowing and the jet stream meandering south, bringing with it persisting blasts of arctic air. (Which itself may be directly attributable to climate change: the paradox of a colder winter in a warming world -- a concept apparently too complicated for the rudimentary brains of Republicans.)

In this northern city, despite the December rain, there was a white Christmas; but barely. While here, less than half an hour due north (as well as at elevation, and that much further from the big lake), there was lots of snow. But it came down heavy and wet: hard as hell to shovel, treacherous to drive.

The poem could easily have turned into something nostalgic: an old man, looking back. Which I very much did not want. So I tried from the start to make it observational instead of sentimental. But ultimately, the poem becomes political: a lament at the ravages of climate change (although I hope one that isn't heavy-handed, or hectoring.) Which is why the last two stanzas involve living things: the tree kill; the rabbits in their winter white, left exposed.