Jack Frost I Love Thee Not
By Wally Kasper

Jack Frost Begone! Depart! Fly hence from me!
For you have lingered long, behaved so cruelly,
Since first you crept in upon September’s colour rhapsody.

Your cold heart has buried each lovely red and yellow shade,
That September bequeathed unto October. Then does each color fade
Into the stark, snow white blanket that on the land you’ve laid.

Then, nipping spitefully at each uncovered ear and nose,
Colouring fingers blue, plotting mayhem on so many toes;
You choreograph each snow-bank, as it snows and snows.

My love affair with buttercups, astilbe, roses, and clematis, too,
Tomatoes from the garden, these and more, frustrated are by you,
Could you not take the season off and play in sunny Timbuktu?

I pray that you’ll be banished, to do your mischief in other climes.
Somehow, I fear the Gods are deaf to my entreaties. As in other times,
When October rings my doorbell you’ll be hiding just behind the pines.

I would never let it be known, but one must take a stand,
That when that first pristine snowfall has covered all the land,
It is a wondrous vision of beauty, and my heart is in thy hand.