The Widow While appreciates machinery
when it works
she knows the principles are basic
and sound and you set the choke
just so and prime the engine
but when the result
is splutter cough
and the starting process
chokes
well
then
she’s more apt
to pick up her shovel
and push and toss
accumulated drifts and piles
than to argue
with the weighty mass
of orange metal
that could shorten the work
on her long driveway
and so
despite her love of snow
when the clouds deliver
fabulous mounds
there is a level
of dread
that also mounts
such that a friendly otter said
    Widow Wyile it be time
     this winter for you
     to befriend that snowblower
     that sits in stalwart
     solid solo space
     in the garage
     like the good machine it is 

a worthy challenge
though taunting
can you be friends
with a two-cycle machine?

others have not
this dread full attitude
they get on just fine
with the rotating gears
that haul up snow to throw
in an arcing solid seeming stream
that plasters itself to shingles
tree trunks and the lenses
of your glasses when the wind
flings the layers back at you
all part of the somewhat adversarial
high vibrational activity
the sh-sh-sh-aking  push 
p u l l  
a head            re-ver se
no     you cannot   t u r n   here
and what are you doing
flinging snow full upon
the path you just did clear? 

well
dear readers
as you may well discern
from these lines
this is the year
the orange metal machine
with its movable snow throwing spout
has deigned to start up easily
thanks for sure
to last year’s repair
or was it the year before
by a house calling
doctor of mechanics

 This February
   following the same
capricious    method
as for mowing
hath the Widow Wyile carved
paths through the erstwhile
kneedeepsnow
decorated house walls
with white flake splatter
and generally got on well
with her noisy rumbling so-called friend
three days in a row
a promising development
to be continued
should another
op port unity
present
itself