Snow Shovel

The "golden shovel" is a fun poetic form to work with.

Here are the rules for the Golden Shovel:
Take a line (or lines) from a poem you admire.
Use each word in the line (or lines) as an end word in your poem.
Keep the end words in order.
Give credit to the poet who originally wrote the line (or lines).
The new poem does not have to be about the same subject as the poem that offers the end words.
If you pull a line with six words, your poem would be six lines long. If you pull a stanza with 24 words, your poem would be 24 lines long. And so on.

Since today is Opposite Day, I though I would share a golden shovel poem I wrote several years ago, since the poem it was taken from, "Watermelons" by Charles Simic, is a summer poem and my poem is a winter poem.

First:
"Watermelons" by Charles Simic

Watermelons
Green Buddhas
On the fruit stand.
We eat the smile
And spit out the teeth.

And now:

"Snow Shovel" by Jeff Barnes

I don’t remember when the world was last green.
Snowmen sit in yards like fat Buddhas,
some with old hats on
their heads, looking stoic as the
wind kicks up. I miss the taste of fruit
bought fresh from the stand,
the gentle days when we
walked by the riverfront park and would eat
ice cream cones. Every Saturday afternoon the
truck would be there. The ice cream man would smile
when he saw us, knowing he would make a sale and
he greeted us as old friends. The sky continues to spit
snow and even so the cats want to go out
onto the deck and sniff the cold air and stare up at the
icicles hanging from the eaves like a predator’s teeth.