Ice-Cold Memories

I don't know if the weather is becoming more extreme ... or if I am becoming more sensitive to changes ... or it's all my imagination.

I'm sure of one thing, though, today's poem was written in the middle of one of those sizzling summer months when the pavement starts turning to goo and thoughts turn to the prospect of frying an egg on the sidewalk.

And I know this, too, I was looking for ways of surviving.

Ice-cold memories, pressed to the sizzling brow, may not be the answer, but I think they help.

At least the thought of that possibility produced a poem:

ICE-COLD MEMORIES

In the root cellar

of my mind

I have memories

of last winter

lying on the shelves

to help me survive

these front-burner

days of summer.

I shall pull them out

one by one, to press

to my sizzling brow,

daily hoping that

I have stored enough

to carry me through

until autumn

comes galloping up.

© 1995

(originally published in Capper's)

***

Today's word: sizzling