friendly state, d. ellis phelps

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Today, we are having, what we Texans hope is the last really cold snap of winter weather.

Grant you, it’s not that cold, relatively speaking: lows near freezing. But, as you may have seen on the news, in recent years, we have experienced power and water outages due to freezing rain and snow and temps that dropped into the single digits (4 degrees here), weather that our power grid simply is not properly equipped to handle.

So, we all get really tense and worried when the forecast predicts actual winter. We run to the grocery store and the gas station and do last minute online shopping for winter-wear (we’re learning, but we are not quite up to speed).

Thankfully, this winter, even though we did have a peppering of snow a few weeks ago, the power has stayed on.

Recently, I’ve been writing for and supporting the fund-raising-for-food efforts of The Texas Poetry Assignment, Laurence Musgrove, Ed. Anyone can write to any of the posted prompts at any time and, if published, participate in the quarterly online contributor’s readings. Check it out!

Here’s a poem of mine that appeared in the Feb. 2025 Issue of TPA Quarterly (a publication of The Texas Poetry Assignment) that was written in response to the prompt: Texas Hopes.

friendly state
~d. ellis phelps

we hope the power
will stay on—that
there will be no snow

some of us hope
to see blue in power

but no

no matter
how red things get

no matter
we power on:

drive by the dry riverbed
—pray for rain

dig up invasives
—opt for natives

pre-cycle plastics
—drink from glasses

finish reading on TPA Quarterly

Thanks for reading. Stay warm!

Namaste,
d