Poet's Choice by Linda Pastan

Though my poems are often a reflection of my so called "real life" (the woods outside my window, my family, what I read about in the newspapers), they are usually more disguised, less specific in their details, than this poem. Maybe that's because I lead such a quiet life that I have to invent, or at least embroider. But the snow that buried the Washington area this February was only "quiet" in the literal sense. Without heat, light, water, phone or stove, I felt like a character in "Castaway"...