Our own private Ice Age
“When viewed on multimillion-year time scales,
Earth is presently in a glacial interval”
Untimely melt of winter days.
Snows recede in ways leaves and rain know,
with wrappers and butt ends and duds,
runoff clot of dim snow at the statue end
of a walkway— some founder in stone
where people lean to talk on phones.
Colleges and the recreational twenties
track the current ice age stage passover
wiping brows with sleeves
rubber bracelets tough with reminder
underneath saying we are proud alive
better than watches could.
Something about our driving on
keeps the four seasons alive. Or flip that.
They sigh and drag showing tardiness
a new spirit. Depressed, finally feeling useless
with all that’s developed in place of a bare face,
the four wait to graduate into one set state.
So humor the four of them as if they were a band
mid classic discography lines, mid world tour,
fulfilling some contract.
Stuck inside these four walls, sent inside forever…
Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry
Them good ol' boys were drinking whiskey and rye, singing…
For the band on the run, band on the run, band on the run, band on the run