It's February, and the snow
Lies deep upon the hidden grass
And buries every Summer bush
And thickly coats each limb and branch

And day by day it whispers down
To add another inch or more
To what would, any other year,
Have kept me snug inside my doors.

But not this time! 2000's Spring
Is months away, yet here am I
A self-proclaimed "warm-weather boy,"
Out beneath the open sky.

Nor bundled up like Charlie Brown
(Farewell, Charles Schulz; you will be missed)
But hatless, gloveless, lightly shod:
My face upturned to Winter's chilly kiss.

Arms outstretched to pirouette
As helicopter blades or vanes
Of windmill in a hurricane:
That Kelly fella in the rain's

A lightweight, for his only claim
Is that he's "ready" for some love
To come his way like snow or rain,
To drop down on him from above.

The snow has slipped into my shoes
And, melting, creeps around my toes:
It soaks my jeans up to the knees,
And in my collar dripping goes.

I'm catching snowflakes on my tongue
And, kicking up great flurries, run
And dive headfirst into a bank
And laughing, leaping, up I come!

I throw a snowball, miss a tree;
I toss another one at me:
Straight up it goes, straight down it comes!
I do not step aside: you see

Where Gene is warmed in rain because
He's ready to love and be loved,
Within me burns a passion-fire,
A love that blazes strong enough

To keep me warm through arctic blast.
And were it not against the law
I could run naked in the snow
And with my heart's hot heat I'd thaw

Great swaths of ground and banish clouds--
Bring out the Sun to gaze in awe
Upon the blazing of this love
More bright than any e'er He saw.

No Tristan and Isolde, that lass
Juliet and her Romeo,
Abelard and Heloise
Burned not as do we, oh no!

No furnace or volcano's blast,
No heart of star or bonfire blaze
Out-heats, outshines her kiss: Diana's
Love shall keep me warm through all my days.