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Winter in Moab

by Robert Fulghum | Jan 26, 2024

Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
The end of January 2024
The usual churn of weather – stormy, cold, windy one day – calm and mild and clear the next – local climate change.

MOAB IN WINTER – A Week in the Life, then and now.

My weekly trip to Moab for supplies always provides examples of weirdness. In the parking lot of Ace Hardware, I saw an old Ford pickup truck bearing a bumper sticker that declared:
“I Am Easily Distracted By Cows.”
What?

How about this bumper sticker on the back of a car in the ATV line at Zion’s Bank:
“I’d Rather Be Slowly Consumed By Moss.”
Weird.

It’s very slow and quiet here in Winter – the flood of tourists has eased – stores and restaurants close for the season – and the town of 6,000 goes back to the pace and character of its past.
Slowly, slowly.

Still, provocative joy remains.
And I rode home singing a song I heard ten years ago.
On a clear, cold day in Moab earlier in the week, a little girl, buttoned up for winter, was skipping ahead of me on the sidewalk and singing:

“Singa songa winter, winter, winter.
Singa songa winter, singa song.”

That was all – over and over – sometimes skipping – always singing.
With some wordless la-las and humming in between verses.

Her song stuck in my mind… and I began a riff on her song:

Singa songa winterrr
Tingle toast and feat.
Snowy snow and quinter.
Ice and eyes and szleeet.

Tin below fore scathing,
Rozy noze and hears.
Knot so good fore bathing,
Win the when is fierce.