
I resorted to photo poetry today, inspired by two disparate images and tried to bring them together for Pride month. I am quite annoyed with myself for not taking photos of two fire hydrants that struck me on my visit to the Jersey Shore area. They were yellow with green caps and the one near the hotel at Assateague Island was possibly the most elegant looking one surrounded by a riot of flowers. That picture would have been worth more than a thousand words and now, I have only words that should suffice to conjure that image for you dear reader. Enjoy the poem, for Pride Month and for rainbows.
Deep winter, those downy conifers arose
arranged in an alpine alliteration
on a path to somewhere or elsewhere
or possibly nowhere. Their wandering
needles traced that which coursed the palm
of a suburban street, where water lay buried
beneath snow in the veins of a profligate
poetry. Is a fire hydrant an embankment
to metaphorical apostasy within states
of matter? Those conifers simply stammer
in enjambment along every bank and furrow,
sounding a Morse code of pinecones
on summer grass, asking if the fireplug
is red in a stoic abstinence than
the ephemeral rainbow scattering through
soft rainy mist painting the skies.

References:
Pinecones can stay on pine trees for more than 10 years before falling to the ground ~https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/unlocking-the-secrets-of-the-pinecone/
Pride Month is celebrated every June as a tribute to those who were involved in the Stonewall Riots also called the Stonewall Uprising, which began in the early hours of June 28, 1969 when New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club located in Greenwich Village in New York City. The riots served as a catalyst for the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world ~https://www.history.com/topics/gay-rights/the-stonewall-riots
The timberline is usually a point where there isn’t enough air, heat, or water to keep trees alive. The alpine timberline marks the point where the elevation is too high, and usually too cold, for tree growth. For e.g. The city of Vail, Colorado, is located near an alpine timberline in the Rocky Mountains. Trees along the Vail timberline include quaking aspen and lodgepole pine ~https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/timberline/
Fire hydrants are colour coded for water flow and pressure ~http://www.firehydrant.org/info/hycolor.html
BLUE | 1500 GPM or more | Very good flows |
GREEN | 1000-1499 GPM | Good for residential areas |
ORANGE | 500-999 GPM | Marginally adequate |
RED | Below 500 GPM | Inadequate |
GREEN | Over 120 p.s.i | Extremely high pressure (caution!) |
ORANGE | 50-120 p.s.i. | “Normal” pressure range |
RED | Below 50 p.s.i. | Must be “pumped” |
WHITE | Public System Hydrant | (EBMUD) |
YELLOW | Private System Hydrant | Connected to public water main |
RED | Special Operation Hydrant | Not used except for spcl. procedures |
VIOLET | Non Potable Supply | Effuent, pond or lake supply |