10-4 Magazine February 2024

10-4 Magazine / February 2024 73 Poetry in Motion: By Trevor Hardwick SETTING GOALS SNOW FUN AT ALL I’m in my truck and hunkered down, The highway’s closed outside of town. The truck stop lot is packed with trucks, And I’m down to my last few bucks. Snow keeps falling, wind is cold, It might last several days, I’m told. Looks like I’ll be stuck right here, And I sure hate this time of year. Take me where the sunshine brings, Life renewed for everything. The ground hog’s shadow won’t be seen, Leading to an early spring. Bring on all that warmth again, When wild owers ll the medians. When sunshine rules and rainclouds yield, And baby cows are in the elds. Showme lots of fancy trucks, Instead of lots where trucks are stuck. My left arm’s turning pale again, I miss the sunburn on my skin. Bring back longer daylight hours, And warm refreshing thundershowers. The vapors from the searing heat, Rising from the asphalt street. All around me, I see snow, I’d like to leave, but I can’t go. A brisk stomp through a slush- lled lot, Just makes me miss when it was hot. A fewmore weeks, we’re almost there, When pollen starts to ll the air. I’ll tell wintertime goodbye, at last, And snow can kiss my fresh-cut grass! If you like snow, I’ll give you mine, All it does is make me whine. Springtime can’t come soon enough, I’m done with all this frozen stu ! As I’m sitting here writing this poem it is early January, and thispoemwill endupintheFebruary issue. Wearestill a longway from springtime, since winter technically just began a couple weeks ago. But I tend to set certain mental thresholds in my mind, with respect to how much further I have to go to reach a certain goal. It helps me to keep pushing on, and makes the journey not seem so arduous. For example, if I am in Salt Lake City and I’mheading to Seattle, that 830miles might seem like a daunting task when you consider all the space between the two that needs to be covered. However, if I set little thresholds to reach along the way, then it doesn’t seem so bad. Just get from Salt Lake City to the Idaho line... easy. Then, just a hop, skip, and a jump from there to the Oregon line at Ontario... nothin’ to it. Now we have some hills to pull, but it doesn’t take long before you’re dropping down Cabbage Pass into Pendleton, and the Washington State line is technically in your view (if it’s not socked in with fog). Next, it’s just 230 more miles into Seattle... done! See, that wasn’t so bad. I use the same method to mentally carry me through the winter months that I so passionately despise. Sure, winter just began, but we are now past the shortest day of the year, so that’s one milepost in the rear-view mirror. And the fact that I am currently submitting the poem for the February issue almost gives me that warm fuzzy feeling, too. The next threshold between me and warmer weather... Shamrock Shakes. When I see those popping up everywhere, I know spring is in the air! But for now, we just have to come to terms with the fact that we are here. Yes, it’s wintertime. And, in my opinion, that’s “snow” fun at all!