[Newspoetry] poem

[Anne Bargar]

Dear Mr. President,
	
	We are writing to request, nay, demand the return of winter to the
Midwest.  Out here on the prairie, we are accustomed, both personally and
environmentally, to having at least a foot of snow on the ground for most
of the winter.  Yet this winter, the ground is bare.  This is a tragic
situation for us, which we understand you have contributed greatly to by
being a scofflaw to the world.  You have invested unwisely, pursued
environmental degradation in the name of profits, and poo-pooed the world
on global warming.  We understand that money and power are beloved to you,
and so we ask you to understand that our winter is beloved to us.  And
since we have done nothing to stand in the way of your faulty
profit-making schemes (save graze on public land), we fail to see why we
have been targeted to receive such boundlessly unfair treatment.
	For example, we have had rain instead of snow.  The ground can
only hold so much water, leading to a greater amount of runoff than would
normally occur.  This leads to a greater occurrence of leaching of applied
nitrates than would normally occur, which of course goes straight into our
drinking supply.  Mr. President, have you ever had unfiltered NH3 running
through your once-pristine source of drinking water? Evidently not, for if
you had, you would know just how foul it tastes, and you would wish to
spare us this injustice.   
And furthermore, last years calves will not have the pleasure of
frolicking in the snow the way our generation did at their age.  I ask
you, what did they do to you to deserve this?
	Your unwise decisions, and those of your cohorts, have robbed us
of our precious and beloved winter.  We demand the return of one of our
most priceless and beautiful seasons.  If we do not receive our winter
within the next few weeks, we shall show our strength in ways that the
Secret Service is unprepared to deal with.

				Signed,    
				The North Central North American 
				Joint Bison Committee of Reticulated,
  				Detached, Deployed, and Fermented Bison