In his poem, “Spring Thunder,” Mark van Doren brings us a short, haunting evocation of weather and the change in seasons. Today, we’d like to challenge you to craft your own short poem that involves a weather phenomenon and some aspect of the season. Try using rhyme and keeping your lines of roughly even length.
Uncharacteristic—this March of ’Twenty-Six
When
our windows rattle and shake
At
noon, night, or day break
We
pray ’tis an unseasonal storm
Not
the prophesied locust swarm
Nor
missiles, drones, or fighter planes
Clouding
our skies, emptying our lanes
We
Look! We Listen! Sirens, then rumble
Lo!
A Sonic boom! Sans sleep we tumble
Out
of our skins to Pull the curtains back
See!
There’s rain. Pitter. Patter. Black.
Un-seasonality,
we have grown to accept
Islands
sink, ice melts far away. We slept.
But
the unnatural has knocked on our door
this
time. So, how do you suppose we ignore
Such
a travesty? We fear for/our habitat—the fence.
While March marches forth in gusty columns dense--
With
baited breaths, we watch Ramazan, Eid, Holi
arrive
and pass over muted dinners of limp broccoli
But
Hope turns tantric, tantrums a trance, scrubs ash
On third-eyes, foreheads. We spring clean, clear cache.
Like a magician who knows
She unfurls 2026's first rose.
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