Pet Peeve #3 December Rain

 

The Pet Peeve #3

December rains flood the bird feeders—how will they eat?—but doesn’t wash the blood off my porch, the carnage scattered from door to window; tuffs of fur, a chewed-off leg, entrails, a tail. My dear husband cleaned it up with his shop broom and what all. But what, you ask, does this have to do with the rain the rain, the rain?

It’s my opinion that if it were snow falling gently from these iron-gripped skies to pile up in fluffy banks around the porch, drifts swirling and forming barriers along the drive, then perhaps these nocturnal creatures, whatever they are, would eat their dinner in their riverbank burrows, cubbyholes, and woody enclaves, (I want no Invitation to the Party!) instead of spreading it across my front porch for the UPS and Fed Ex guys to look at askance, as at the scene of a murder, checking the soles of their boots before climbing back in their trucks.

So, call it what you want: global warming, climate change, or normal fluctuations in weather patterns, I want my winters back. I want the cardinals and the juncos to flit among snow-laden boughs instead of flapping their wings like ducks in the newly formed ponds where there was once a yard. And I don't want dead things on my doorstep.

For Poets and Storytellers and their Seasonal Writings, asking us to include the title of a book we're reading this December in a piece of poetry or prose. An Invitation to The Party  was a perfect fit!