Minnesota,
land of snow
land of ice
and wind
and chill

Gray sky, thick clouds, and fog now reign -
Give visibility that comes and goes
Between the sleety sister, icy-rain
and her brutal brothers, wind and snow,
But sunshine days are only weeks away.

Beneath the snow now sofa-thick -
A muffled trickling in the creek...
Not that winter's in the bag,
But an icicle extends its length;
White powder snow begins to sag;
A trickle leaves the water tank.

The ice, knee-thick, when drilled,
Reveals fish to pull up through the hole.
A month of fishing remains still;
The ice is safe, in spite of dwindling cold.

Somewhere up a path I hear but cannot see
The cheeky call of a chick-a-dee
Alerting family with his tweet
Who feast on orange bittersweet.

There's still a pile of seasoned wood
stacked in the shed, and enough food
To feed a visitor who happens by,
And every day is closer to blue sky.

So keep your hurricanes and quakes,
Your desert dryness and your heat,
Your eruptions volcanic and tidal waves,
Your populations fighting just to eat...
To me the cold and snow are sweet.