“Atmospheric Conditions” by Sherry Chandler

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.                           Out of [the weather] almost everybody
.                          . . . can produce pieces of poetry
.                                                             — Ted Hughes

We shall have weather whether
we want it or not, Days may
be cloudy or sunny, as some clever writer
said. On the whole I’d say we’d rather
have the sun for if it rains
we will get wetter,
and if the day is wuthering,
our umbrellas will invert
making us madder
than a wet hen. But then
if we have too much noonday sun
we’ll be up to our withers
in hydrophobic dogs and Englishmen.

Though I can claim neither
my hair nor my sins
have been washed whiter
than snow, I’m sad to say
I have not weathered
all that well. Though I’m too
well-nourished to claim I’ve withered
on the vine, my hopes for a hale
old age have blown away
I know not whither.
I guess I sheepishly followed the knell
of the wrong bellwether.

But while we shelter in the cellar
weathering life’s year-long wester
I can only hope we will not waver
or wait till the weather is fine
but high as a mountain, deep as a river,
we’ll love come rain or come shine.

(with apologies to Johnny Mercer)

-Sherry Chandler

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