February 12: Done With Winter, Yoopers, "Spring Snow Storm"

I just looked outside at my neighbor's house, buried in snow.  It just keeps coming and coming.  When my wife got home from work this afternoon, she climbed out of her car and said, "I'm just about done with winter."

Yoopers are allowed to complain about snow in the Upper Peninsula.  We've earned that right.  Outsiders (and by outsiders I mean any person who has not lived here for at least ten years) are not allowed to voice frustration with winter weather.  If they do, they will be shot down immediately by "real" Yoopers with stories of the Winter of '78, where the snowbanks were as tall as houses.

Saint Marty has a snow storm poem for you tonight . . . 

Spring Snow Storm

by:  Martin Achatz

The weather guy, in his ugly tie,

Predicts six to twelve inches tonight,

A spring storm out of Alaska, Canada,

Winds as strong as cattle trains.

Tomorrow, I will wake to this creature,

This force of different fronts from ocean,

Mountain, glacier, tundra.  I’ve heard

It said a butterfly’s wings, trembled

On African savannah, causes hurricanes

On the Gulf Coast, another flood

In the Big Easy, wipes out Mardi Gras

For good, an oil slick of jazz

On magnolia, pelican wing, bayou.

I wonder if the collective gasp in Japan

After earthquake and tsunami caused

This early spring snow, set into motion

Winds across the Pacific, bore

That shock and grief through salt,

Through supermoon, mixed it with cries

Of caribou and polar bear, brought

It to me, to my home, snow falling

On roof and car, snow on street, lawn,

Gas station, church steeple, snow

Everywhere, heavy as a thousand souls.

Tonight, when I press my lips to my son’s

Fingers, somewhere on this planet

Rain will start to fall in a desert place,

Filling the land with green life.