Friday, March 30, 2007

Springtime in Minnesota poem

Spring
When the ice houses slip through thin ice
And old men flee their winter’s sinking habitat
As if it were the Titanic
To return, for another six months, to their wives’ open arms;
Their homes, their bickering, and their lefse

They return to the lives that winter months put on hold
Just as the fabled cod they hunted, frozen beneath the surface, swims towards spring

Honey-do projects, hand tools, and their lawn mowers await them
Like Penelope longing for her hero’s return
Spring! melting snow
like butter melted over warm lefse
A sweet end to a year of lutefisk, and a new beginning
A return to romance
And lawns
And road trips

And days spent sitting in a lawn chair, dreaming
Of ice fishing once more