Star-crossed Woodchuck Makes It big in Punxatawny!
By the Q.O.E.
2/2/19
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck,
If a woodchuck could chuck wood?
How much good would it even do, if he came out for good?
What if he saw his shadow on the second of February?
What if he thought it was no big deal…not even slightly scary?
Who was it who discovered this craze that has swept the nation:
The key to climatic secrets in fuzzy prognostication?
Who was it in Punxatawny, who decided to rise at dawn,
And who gathered up the get-up they all have the brass to put on?
Which mad media-mogul decided to air the thing,
To whip up a national frenzy on the yearly arrival of spring?
When did we lose our senses, our grasp of the scientific,
To adopt as our weather compass this ill-tempered rodent terrific?
When everyone knows the arrival of spring is as easy to give
As holding our grip on a rainbow….or mercury in a sieve.
Volatile Mother Nature is rarely so easy to read..
Or so loose with her close-kept secrets that calendars supersede.
The weather’s a wily wonder not easy to prophecy…
Nor much easier to explain…long after it’s passed by.
But, winter is long and boring outside of the tropic climes;
And waiting for spring’s not a pleasant thing in even the best of times.
So, who could possibly blame us for conjuring up a game,
Transforming the cold to a circus by giving a woodchuck a name?
And, who would deny Punxatawny, a ho-hum location some say,
The chance to be wrong and yet famous on national news for a day?
We swallow it….hook line and sinker, we can almost hear trumpets and drums,
When the cold morning dawns as the old woodchuck yawns…
And spring?
Well, it comes when it comes!