Good Weather in Rice County

No smog here or typhoons
or salt-baked land.
This is blizzard country.
Occasions of roof-splintering hail.
Some weeks, acres of grey drizzle,
lingering fogs,
molds and toadstools jubilant.

Sudden afternoons, skies turn
eerily green, lindens utterly
still, poised
for the slash of twisters,
snap of downed power lines,
barricades of trees
unnaturally horizontal.

Or the usually placid
Cannon River, turns
torrential, runs
out of bounds,
floods our ears
like the foaming rhetoric
of fascist orators.

Soon the stench of manure,
drifting from fields circling
the town, will cling to everything;
Asian beetles will infest
our roses and wainscoting;
and it won’t be just the heat
but the humidity.

Today, though, mild April
sun exhilarates. Girls don
flimsy dresses. Daffodils shoulder
up through muddy duff,
and Siberian scilla wash
through scuffs of dry leaves,
wave after wave.

Today, it is as if blue
shadows from these inert mounds
of snow have run away,
stolen from sidewalk margins
to limestone building edges; as if pale
suggestions are leaping into
heart-cracking, chromatic tune.

Leslie Schultz

All the images in this post were taken in this month within walking distance of my home. I still can’t get used to the sight of bare legs and spaghetti straps!

Hoping your internal and external weather today is heavenly! Leslie

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