A POEM ABOUT…."SHINGLES"

Don't see much of anything
    poetic about
                             shingles.

So why do so many poets
                   write about them?

I sat at my white picnic table
    out in front
                  of my house

with my little leather notebook
                                and studied
    the shingles on my roof,

preparing to be poetically inspired.
         (If other poets.        can do it---
                 so can I,)

Can you empathize ?
                               It was slow-going
    for me.

I'd never be known as
                         "The Shingle Poet."

Then all at once...my memory kicked
                                              in!

I remembered that cold night in
         October '04
    when the bottom fell
                     out of the clouds

and it rained a blue streak and hail
   as big as marbles
                                piled up as it
             blew into the flower beds!

The din was awful, especially the hail
      hitting my pickup...and the
                         porch lights
    showed only a wall of water
                coming in sideways...

We stayed dry.

It snowed sixteen inches at our house
         that December '06 day
    right                    before New Year's
          ---wonder that the roof didn't
    cave in...

We stayed warm.

Reckon maybe it was mid-May of 2012,
            when I was doin' some
    writing at my desk...the winds hit
          and the rain came a' pourin'----

Writing lazily in my lounging PJ bottoms,
                        I suddenly.    remembered
     the newspaper...lying there in the
                driveway---about to be
                      soaked...,

In my socks, I ran out the door
                           and grabbed the paper
   and headed back in...but alas! The
        front door had locked behind
               me,

And I had no keys...my wife was gone...
      the rain blew awful...up under our
                                  tiny porch
        where.   I was cowering.

I covered up a bit with an old rug I found
       out there but the water
                           came in under the
   porch...and I got soaked...luckily
          my wife returned home early....

The shingles didn't help that day...
                                I was not
     under them.

Totally inspired now...for my shingle poem
       I was writing as fast
                                           as I could!

I thought of just this past mid-September
      when it rained over three inches
                         in several days....

Remember that one day when it rained an
                                   inch
       in thirty minutes?

We stayed dry.

Still studying my roof and my shingles, I
         pondered all those past
     events....and suddenly realized
        the importance of the
                 shingles:

On this earth, we want and have a need to
                         be warm, dry, and cozy...
     and secure.

And we don't want our stuff getting wet
                               and mildewing...

It's simple...and it's those poetic shingles!

That's it!                       Tell me
            if I'm wrong.

********30*******
BY MIL
02/07/14