Jo Walton
Another Poem About the Weather

It sometimes goes past freezing in the morning
and the snow that comes down sideways turns to rain...
They say bathetic fallacies are allegorical
and weather's just a metaphor for pain.

The green shoots underground are yearning skyward.
The snow that hides the grass will melt away...
But weather in a song must stand for stuff that's going on
cold hearts that warm to life in merry May.

But Eliot wrote April is the cruellest
when hearts and seasons do not march in time...
But sometimes a cigar is just a really manly drug
and people sometimes choose words for the rhyme.

And weather doesn't always ape emotion
The grey clouds overhead mean rain comes down...
And hearts can find delight at any season of the year
and spring will come inevitably round.

_ _

This poem first appeared at the author's personal blog, papersky.

<< Back to Issue 15, 2012