Absolute deafening silence...

during and after a moderate snowfall

today January 19th, 2024,
within Southeastern Pennsylvania
and elsewhere across the Eastern Seaboard,

whereby blanket of whiteness

muffles sounds of civilization.

I hate a spoiler alert
regarding weather forecasters prediction,
especially when meteorologist
wannabe spouse doth blurt
out impending blizzard
which never materializes,
thus no need for yours truly to exert
himself shoveling and yet denying same
to frolic and gamely flirt
with Khione, the Greek goddess of snow,
daughter of Boreas, god of the North Wind
and Winter, and sister of Zethes and Calais.

I feel humbled and enamored
when Mother Nature
singly and/or nsync with old man winter
looses propensity to bestow majestic scene,
when expanse of pure white
individual ice crystals
that grow while suspended
in the atmosphere—

usually within clouds—
and then fall, accumulating
on the ground,
where they render further magic
changes landscape into blanket
of pure virgin whiteness;
I fondly think back
remembering '96 storm of the century.

At that time January 1996
me and the missus while timesharing
at Shawnee on the Delaware
ardently, diligently, and persistently strived, yet
unsuccessfully conceived Blizzard Baby.

Now wife far beyond procreative age,
(though nevertheless I wistfully envisage
begetting another progeny -
simultaneously stretching credulity
to breaking point)
all things considered
exhaustion would peter out
after capitulation of divining rod
announced, ejaculated, and issued forth little squirt
necessitating lifetime to recoup energy.

Bound within figurative four walls
of Schwenksville, Pennsylvania domicile
courtesy appreciable snowfall,
I direct energy crafting poem.

Yours truly will actually
refrain comestibles despite feeling hungry -
(plus he will be undergoing a colonoscopy
five days hence and abstain eating fiber
unless inclement weather determines otherwise)
lest metabolism to digest food
decreases potential alertness,
and full belly finds me
able, eager, ready and willing
to lie supine, study
the backs of my eyes and digest.

"Mother Nature" commences

to baptize spilling
purity from sheltering overcast sky

bajillion year celestial tureen
while refulgent weak solar beams

desperately massage tender shoots
thawing frozen earth,

where frigid cold icy sheen
hermetically sealed, asper

horizontal frozen walled in pond,
Thoreau and thru,

when skaters waltzed

stealing lovers kisses unseen
soon thaw melts pools
of frozen precipitation

all a buzz with feeding
Gabriel donning primped

orange coiffure trumpeting

"NON FAKE" arrival herculean
kickstarting powers unleashed

since time immemorial worship,
and/or sacrifices made

to deities of webbed skein
viz, animal and/or plant

wide world rejoicing when
harvest yielded cornucopia

primitive, yet over keen
superstitious shutterfly scattered

bands of hominids plentitude
linkedin to sugar daddy's

favorite colored jelly bean
benediction, and veneration rituals

also included pagan dispensing

prayers believing

obeisance necessitated cyclopean
appeasement lest death

and destruction would rain
purple pearl drop monsoon,

traced to angry spirits
subsequently drowning

helpless prehistoric hygiene
cleansed Homo sapiens

ancestors possessing gene

and chromosomes latent

within dormant flora lean
fauna coming alive

with the scent of fragrant bouquet
while the hills burst

with creativity healthy panacean
liberating tentative "cabin fever"

wrought by polar
vortex, the spell of warm weather,

a respite sunscreen

applied to ward off deadly

ultraviolet solar radiations
something in magnitude

bajillion extinctions obscene
spate of lost species

as seasons greetings witness hot
untenable global warming

affecting every calm serene
nook and cranny incumbent

to relish approximately

twelve weeks of cold temperatures

while sipping my ovaltine
reminiscing about Lake Wobegon days
recollected from fictitious boyhood,

when snowfall covered roofs
tops inconveniencing Rudolph,

and his deer friends a teen
nee tiny bit, and school cancellation

necessitated state requirement
resulting summer vacation

shelving reading Pygmalion
for Shaw!