December in Los Angeles

The tulip bulbs rest darkly in the fridge

To get the winter they can't get outside;

The drought and warm winds alter and abridge

The season till it almost seems denied.

A bright road-running scrub jay plies his bill,

While searching through the garden like a sleuth

For peanuts that he's buried in the soil:

How different from the winters of my youth.

Back in Vermont, we'd dress on furnace vents.

A breakfast of hot cereal-and then

We'd forge out to a climate so intense

It would have daunted Scott and Amundsen.

I'd race down icy Howard Street to catch

The school bus and pursue it, as it roared

Up Union, my arms waving, pleading, much

To the amusement of my friends on board.

But here I look out on a garden, whose

Poor flowers are knocked over on their side.

Well, stakes and ties will cure them of the blues

(If not the winds) and see them rectified.

And in the shower is a pail we use

To catch and save the water while it warms:

I fetch and pour it on the irises

And hope this winter will bring drenching storms.