PAD Day 23: Turbulent Season

 Today's prompts from Write Better Poetry and NapoWriMo: (1) Write a "juxtaposition" poem, and (2) write a villanelle that ends with a question. 

Before I share my new peom, I want to share one of the earliest ones I wrote in what I call my "adult" writing period. (I started writing poetry again in 1999.) It was a villanelle to commemorate my in-laws' 60th anniversary. I loved them both, but they were a study in contrasts. I'm sharing it now because it would fit both of today's prompts almost perfectly. (It doesn't technically "end" with a question, but there are four in the poem, including one in the last stanza.)

Odd Couple 

He’s so slow and she’s so fast,
They’re opposites, one would presume.
So will this marriage ever last?
 
Methodical, he’s fly-fish-cast,
She sweeps like a brand-new broom.
His style is slow, while hers is fast.
 
He’s half-done the night’s repast
When she clears dishes from the room.
How can this marriage ever last?
 
He measures twice, with notes amassed,
She’s kitchen-sink and sonic-boom.
He takes life slow; she likes it fast.
 
Her fuse is short, his patience vast;
They were not knit from common loom.
Why should this marriage ever last?
 
And how much time between them passed?
Sixty years as bride and groom.
She loves him slow, he loves her fast.
They made this marriage ever-last.

You may note that it's in iambic tetrameter rather than the "traditional" pentameter. That was an oversight on my part, but I left it as is because I liked the way it came out. My in-laws loved it, and they were with us to celebrate their sixty-fifth anniversary too, before they passed away about six months later, just weeks apart. 

So here is my new one, inspired by the spring we've had here in New Jersey. We haven't had much "extreme," as in stormy, weather; in fact it has been a rather dry spring. But there have been a lot of extreme temperature swings. Late last week I was running around in T-shirt and shorts with record high temperatures above 90, and the following Monday I was out in a winter coat listening to frost and freeze warnings. The meteorologists have been using phrases like "roller-coaster temperatures" and "weather whiplash," so I incorporated those metaphors into this poem.

The Ride
 
This season has included everything,
ongoing wars between the hot and cold,
the roller-coaster whiplash of the spring.
 
Today the wind whips up an icy sting,
tomorrow we’ll want shorts and T’s, we’re told—
this season has been full of everything.
 
With blizzards and tornados happening,
It’s hard to weather weather, grab a hold—
the roller-coaster whiplash of the spring.
 
And yet, the flowers blossom, songbirds sing,
the sun warms up and bathes us all in gold.
This season has included everything.
 
Soft rain, hard hail, let Mother Nature fling
at us whatever comes, we will be bold—
we’ll ride the coaster whiplash of the spring.
 
By August, we’ll be wishing we could bring
back April. Won’t you come back to the fold,
you season that would burst with everything,
you roller-coaster whiplash of the spring?