Spring Tradition
To participate in and hopefully honor National Poetry Month, Ring Around the Basin will post only poems in April. Some have not yet been offered here, but some come from the Archives, too.
Let’s start with an Oldie from the Archives. Just when we thought Spring was coming to Carson Valley, NV, Winter decided to give us a few encores. The Sierra Nevada ski resorts love it and will be extending their season a few weeks longer. And the ranchers are turning off their irrigation systems and dancing in the barnyards. Luckily, the fruit trees have sensed this winter treachery and have delayed blooming.
This poem, by the way, takes place in Salt Lake City, Utah. While the climate has changed a tad over the decades, they still get late snowstorms. In fact, they’re roughly on the same weather track Nevada is.
Spring Tradition
It was customary in the ‘70s
To have an April “limb breaker.”
At least two feet of wet snow
Would crush and snap
Tulips and elms.
I couldn’t drive us that day
So Norma and I hiked
From our Avenues homes
To work on Main Street.
We slogged merrily
Down the middle of First Avenue
Through snow up to our knees.
I do mean “merrily”
As we were slackers,
Totally devoid of work ethic.
It was a job to pay the bills,
But a great friendship grew
Between us there.
We strolled past people sweeping
Their cars with brooms. Everyone
Was in a good mood because
We could all take our sweet time.
Our bosses would laud us
For making it to work at all.
Meanwhile, we were thrilled
By globs of dripping snow
Weighing down the branches,
Fat mounds of the stuff
Softening the edges of the city.
Victorian mansions took on
A Norman Rockwell aspect
That quickened their dour faces.
Within a block of our destination,
Norma nudged me into a coffee shop.
“We need sustenance to face the day,”
It was hard to say no.
The freshly-scrubbed air,
The muffled hush over the streets
The hiss of tires through slush
Even a hint of sunlight
Enticed us to delay
For just a few minutes more
Before making that descent
Into the basement
Of the savings and loan.
We get those, too. Dreams of early tomatoes ruthlessly killed. After so many disappointing mornings of looking out the window on an April morning and seeing endless white hell where the day before elk were happily over grazing my lawn, I should know by now, but alas, spring hopes eternal .
"...As we were slackers, Totally devoid of work ethic." "...Everyone Was in a good mood because We could all take our sweet time..." "The freshly-scrubbed air, The muffled hush over the streets, The hiss of tires through slush..." Just lovely Sue - and a perfect photo as well. You had me walking down that street with you, ducking into the coffee shop to take as much advantage of the event as possible.