Fragment Of A Weather Report

So a glaze of ice has coated the cars
and the roads and the rooves, already overloaded with snow,
and the people of this medium-sized city
are suited up for battle.

They shovel out their buried cars,
their blocked driveways and parking spaces,
and the plows come by and bury them again.

Many have panic in their eyes,
their faces show
disorientation.

Where some of them come from,
this kind of thing doesn't happen,
and maybe now they're thinking
their old home looks quite good.

Easy is relative.

I chiseled the ice off my windshield,
and now there is a great big smile in the glass,
which will mock me until I can afford to have it replaced.

The radio said that the shouting and spontaneous joy in
Tahrir Square has turned bloody
as the government unleashes it's dogs
in street clothes on the people.

Here we pile snow in mountains and try
to keep the roads clear and the schools open
while Queensland braces for a cyclone,
billed already as likely their worst in history.

A scientist said that the gradual warming of the oceans -
which of course humans aren't responsible for,
we're just out there trying to make a buck -
adds more moisture to storms and thus more power,
but that's just earthy-crunchy, socialist, tree-hugging propaganda.

Right, Pakistan - nearly drowned?
Right, Brazil - buried in sliding mud?
Right, Australia - flooded out, now blown away?
Right, America -2,500 miles of winter fury falling down?

I saw two women trying to get their stuck car out of the snow.
They had brown skin, wore headscarves,
lived in one of this city's tougher housing projects.

A young man with white skin, wearing a suit, not from that housing
project was pushing.

I stopped, did a little shoveling,
and then we three pushed that car free,
but it was raining ice pellets down on all of us,
so no one spoke, but we all smiled
and looked into the eyes of each of the others
for less than a second, and then we went our seemingly
separate ways.