We saved a little winter just for this –
a week of cooler days and overcast;
another chance to hear the tires kiss
the asphalt slick before the rain has passed.

It dashes purple petals to the ground.
It weights rose branches till they bend with buds.
It beads new leaves with sheen, and damps the mound
of neighbor dirt, transforming it to mud.

We didn’t get enough, for all the press
about El Niño and its warmer waves.
We’re fraught with drought, the forests in distress,
too late to turn a tide, too slow to save
the habitat we modeled for our good.
The planet coughs – there goes the neighborhood.