Slight improvement over last week, I think. This is based on a true story of how I had to go across the country (um, the country of England, that is) on an emergency basis on the day before my twenty-first birthday. And there was a crazy blizzard the like of which Southern England had not seen in fifty years. And BritRail was stumped. And then I got really lost when I did manage to arrive at my destination. Not sure why I thought of it. But I figured it was as good sonnet fodder as anything else. Well, not really. But anything that came to my mind this week.
The Wrong Kind of Snow, 1991
When I turned twenty-one it snowed all night
And in the morning all the trains were stalled
I set out for the station before light
I told them “Epsom” and they were appalled
“You cannot get there in this kind of snow,”
The ticket agent argued with a frown
But I stood my ground at her small window
And in the end I got to Epsom town.
Circling around my goal in snowdrift dark
I searched for my hotel room in the cold
No sleeping town had ever been so stark
As midnight struck, I suddenly grew old
I wonder where the dancer is today
Who turned nineteen on that year’s shared birthday?
