Poetry of a Desert Winter

Haiku and a Sonnet for Freezing Pipes

Edit: Just before posting this, I’ve found that a recently accepted poem has indeed just been published in Green Ink Poetry. Here is June Night, Looking Up, written last summer when days were warmer and nights wrapped all around one like a soft cloak.

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In my last post it looked like winter might not stay too much longer. But this past week it returned with the coldest temperatures we’ve had yet.

Although it’s not really all that cold by temperate climate standards, this chill has a big effect in a place that usually only flirts with a little frost. Instead, we had one honest snowstorm with large flakes and several inches’ worth of snow falling one night, while the next night’s temperatures were quite capable of breaking our shallow-trenched water pipes.

Hence this week’s poems.

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Tangerine leaves sway,
asking the day to be kind,
gold after night frosts.

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Where is the sunrise?
Just a bright burst of cloud where
snow peaks are hidden

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A Sonnet Written While Trying to Keep Water Pipes From Freezing

But ah, the joys of running water! Pipes
That keep the precious liquid flowing, stopped
But by a handle, ready to be propped
Open or shut as willing finger swipes
It left or right or up or down, nor gripes
Because a bleary morning human dropped
A pail of water on the floor and mopped
It up, or smashed a bowl only to wipe
The sprawling fluid up again, unfit
To wash with, let alone to cook or drink!
But most of all, there is no need to quit
One’s morning tasks to trudge outside and think
How cold it is while ice forms on one’s mitts.
Pipes, keep my water flowing to my sink!

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Blooms tumbled over,
drowsing in warm sunshine—ahhh—
on the still-cold earth

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