…here in Cincinnati, spawning fears, car wrecks and, generally, the cancellation of life.
The way we deal with snow ( or, rather, don‘t) here led me to write the following poem:
THE WHITE DEATH
“The sky is falling,”
cries Henny Penny,
predicting the White Death
at 5-minute intervals on Channel 5.
A Southern town, settled
one degree North of the Mason-Dixon,
Cincinnati, doesn’t do snow well,
not like Minne-SOH-tans,
or Yoopers, accustomed to
one hundred inches each winter.
Doppler Radar foments panic
a full thirty-six hours
before the first flake is sighted:
grocery stores are laid bare
of bread, milk and toilet paper –
especially toilet paper –
as though the
impending wet blanket
could smother us for a week.
When flakes appear,
crisp arabesques on
my 32-inch HDTV,
schools fall like dominoes
in the crawl at the bottom of the screen.
The town shuts down and we burrow,
like voles in our downy nests
until Henny Penny gives the “all clear.”
Total accumulation: 3 inches.
As for me, I’d rather be in Baltimore today — where a foot or more of snow is predicted. I am intrepid…have 4 wheel drive, will travel (in everything but ice).
I am at work now and the snow is coming down outside my window…I am happy…
Anni
