Long ago I wrote a poem titled “Editing Old Poems is Like a Cuban Taxi.” The title is a sort of simile, and my poet friend Allen Hoey noted that the whole poem comprised an “extended simile.” He used it in classes he taught as an example of the type. Here is another such, prompted by the weather of the last few days. The comparison between weather and warfare might seem a little hyperbolic, but the top ten feet did come off the pine nearest our house and crash down a few feet from the wall. The recycling wheelie took flight scattering its contents everywhere. Seemed a little hostile to me.
January Thaw
April invaded January today with all its forces.
A warm front snuck north, launching a thaw
in the middle of the night. Ice melt bleeds
from the eaves. Sheets and chunks of it crash
from the upper roof onto the lower, shaking
the whole house, then slide over the edge
to bomb craters in the snow along the wall.
Then comes the rain, drumming on roof tin
and pooling on the yard and the driveway,
waxing and waning as storm bands pass over.
After sunset a freight train of wind arrives.
Limbs snap; the flag cracks like a whip,
the wind chime jangles in nonstop frenzy.
In town the fire siren wails above the roar.
April takes its best shot, but falls short.
By 10 pm, its gale will be beaten back,
by dawn all its melt will begin refreezing.
Freeze and thaw may see-saw for a day
or so, but then it’s back to blowing snow.
January will rebuild its white battlements
and April will retreat south to bide its time.
