NaPo 2019 Day 10

Today's prompt is to write a poem using a regional colloquialism for weather phenomena. Being from Texas, I have a lot of options - we Texans love to use strange language to talk about the weather.

When the heavens break open
And its as noisy as two skeletons
Dancing on the roof,
Water starts to pool on the ground.
If it stops soon enough
Kids will head outside
To float tin-foil boats on ponds
And make mud pies.
But if it keeps raining
Then
It's a frog strangler
As though
Frogs could drown in the rain.
Turkeys are known for this
They stare skyward,
Holding their beaks open
And they can actually drown.
That's why its important to put
Fowl inside when it rains.
But frogs?
Frogs start off as tadpoles
Tadpoles breathe water
With gills
And yes, frogs metamorphose
And grow lungs instead
But then they breathe
Through their skin
As long as its moist enough.
They are resilient too.
If the rain stops
And the land dries out
Til its so dry the trees are begging the dogs
Well then, frogs burrow down in the mud
They aestivate til things get wet again.
If frogs can survive it that dry
Surely they can survive it that wet,
Lord willing and the creek don't rise.
Anyway,
In Texas churches
We are always either praying for it to rain
Or praying for rain to stop
But we should know better
Because
A drought usually ends in a flood.



I incorporated a few of those funny turns of phrases in there. This prompt sort of reminded me of Jack Prelutsky's poem "It's Raining Pigs and Noodles." An interesting side note, in Texas we seem to be a little obsessed with frogs because something can be "as fine as frog fur" and it can be as "cold as a frosted frog."

Sharon