2022 Polar Vortex - across wide band of North America

i hark back a couple years when a severe code blue delivered a power outage within a swath of geographical areas, which found us (myself and the missus) trying to stay warm.

How odd perchance

to post a poem about the brutal cold
only to air rate another
that the The spring (vernal) equinox

usually occurring on March 19, 20, or 21,
and represents the precise instant
when the Sun
crosses the celestial equator
with the onset of new life
just around the figurative bend,
but that represents my game plan
after the stroke of midnight.

The January 2026 arctic blast
within Southeastern Pennsylvania
found me revisiting
a similar meteorological event
approximately forty eight months ago
only then (cold comfort),
a failure of electrical service

rendered a broad swath
of Eastern Seaboard like a block of ice.

Power outage here within

mine happy hunting grounds

(as well the ghosts of Lenni Lenape),

videlicet Perkiomen Valley, Pennsylvania

that December twenty third

two thousand twenty two wrought

(lasting greater part of twelve hours)

impossible mission to keep warm
generating body heat

necessity courtesy three dog night,

sure as I'm sitting here

nevertheless found yours truly

yearning for global warming

while dentures chattered

a mile a minute then jumped

out me mouth
and scrabbled, scrambled

and scratched along floor

leaving corpse like body abed

stiff as a board

dead cold analogous,

when rigor mortis

grips lovely bones

immune to brutal cold.

Ordinarily, the weather
considered non trees
son us, a neutral subject on par
with non nose

wrinkling odoriferous cheese
usually ranks as minor distraction,
without whether yours truly agrees
or not, except
during balmy temperatures,
an unavoidable tease,
whereat sub zero degrees,
whether Centigrade or Fahrenheit
demands human sacrifice
(me anima knocking knees),
no negotiating with Ole Man Winter,
he requests (lest
he continue deep freeze
maelstrom until the end of time),
nothing 'cept a healthy seas
sunned Homo sapien to appease
his insatiable appetite
froze to the core,
when all body functions cease,
thus until onset of frostbite disease
transformed me into a human popsicle
obliging surrender of self,
no matter I always minded "p's"
and "q's", and adhered
to selfless decrees
not until that moment - this me's
lee sad excuse e'en for missing link,
said personal radar of this primate
suddenly went haywire madly wheeze
zing, as if giant hand (some
harried styled swiftly tailored
paw) did squeeze
traumatizing, suffocating, mangling
constricting, asphyxiating... sensation
(surprised muss elf, and all my enemies,
hence survived death as a breeze),
when similar to Socrates
ill fate found him downing hemlock,
necessitated, I reluctantly quaffed antifreeze
as preservative, plus

out of necessity to survive
being clobbered, buffeted,
assaulted...finally please
zing lee melting titanic iceberg
more bearable on par with a sneeze
than compared to frigidity

of writer's block.