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RADIO HOST 1: Monticello taking on Rocori, and Minneapolis North versus Rochester Mayo. All should be some very good games coming up today. The championship will be played on Saturday night. You're listening to Minnesota Public Radio.

29 degrees under sunny skies at the FM news station, KNOW FM 91.1, Minneapolis, Saint Paul. Twin Cities weather for today calls for windy conditions-- northeasterly winds at 15 to 30 miles per hour and a high temperature, right around 37 degrees. A little bit warmer tomorrow.

JOHN RABE: I'm John Rabe. Welcome to the second annual Minnesota Public Radio Snowman Burning.

[HORN BLOWING]

[WATER FLOWING]

WOMAN 1: During the foggy, trickling, gurgling, dripping night, winter runs away.

MAN 1: Water drips incessantly from the roof in late winter.

[THOUGHTFUL MUSIC]

The air feels warm, and a refreshing coolness wafts up from the disappearing snow.

JOHN RABE: Today is the first day of spring, and in the next half hour, we'll celebrate winter's demise and the coming of spring with poetry from listeners, music from the Cafe Accordion Orchestra, the humor of Kevin Kling, and the ritual burning of an eight-foot snowman.

MAN 2: Death of winter. It dies while sleeping, this giant. The assassin circles about, shoving the warm blade into the cold corpse.

JOHN RABE: The snowman burning coming up after this news.

CARL KASELL: From National Public Radio News in Washington, I'm Carl Kasell. President Clinton is meeting this morning at the White House with the congressional leadership to discuss the budget. White House aides described the meeting as a last chance to move toward an agreement. Chief of staff Leon Panetta told Fox Morning News that the window of opportunity for an agreement is open only until this summer's party conventions.

The senate majority leader, Bob Dole, says he is ready for meaningful discussions if the president is serious. The talks are the first high-level budget discussions in two months. Dole wrapped up all four Midwestern presidential primaries last night, winning decisively in Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin.

Fresh from his wins, however, he was confronted with possible troubling news. Ross Perot says he's back in politics. NPR'S Elizabeth Arnold reports.

ELIZABETH ARNOLD: As dole declared yet another victory, Ross Perot said he's interested in running, too. Dole has spent months securing delegates for the official republican nomination. Perot simply announced to his supporters yesterday, if members of his new Reform Party ask him, he'll be their nominee.

Dole said he would try to talk Perot out of it, but he admitted he was concerned he helps Bill Clinton. Dole said last night in a television interview. Perot voters and independents in general have not been flocking to the polls in great numbers. Those who did vote in yesterday's primaries split between Dole and Patrick Buchanan.

Dole and Buchanan both campaigned this week in California, the site of next Tuesday's primary. Perot's Reform Party has already secured a place on the ballot there in the fall. I'm Elizabeth Arnold in Washington.

CARL KASELL: The senate today revisits a controversial bill that would limit the damage awards and faulty product lawsuits. President Clinton has threatened to veto the bill, and republican leaders and some senior democrats have expressed outrage. NPR'S Chitra Raghavan has more.

CHITRA RAGHAVAN: The house-senate compromise bill would place caps on punitive damages, the extra sums of money awarded to plaintiffs by juries to punish manufacturers who knowingly put faulty or dangerous products on the market. The bill also would protect product sellers from lawsuits, unless they also manufacture the products. And it would give consumers a 15-year limit to sue manufacturers over faulty goods.

Manufacturers support the bill. Consumer groups and the American Trial Lawyers Association oppose it. President Clinton has threatened to veto it, saying it's anticonsumer. But yesterday, House Speaker Newt Gingrich suggested the president has caved into the Trial Lawyers group that has contributed heavily to his campaigns. And to senior democrats have accused the president of playing election-year politics. I'm Chitra Raghavan in Washington.

CARL KASELL: On the New York Stock Exchange at this hour, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down 13 points to 5,656.51. Trading is active on a volume of 115 million shares. The NASDAQ composite index is down 5.53 to 1,106.97. This is NPR News.

VOICEOVER: Support for National Public Radio comes from the William T. Grant Foundation, supporting research on the development of children, adolescents, and youth.

KAREN BARTA: Good morning. I'm Karen Barta with news from Minnesota Public Radio. The Minnesota House Ethics panel has delayed action on discipline for Representative Jeff Bertram. The committee's legal advisor, retired justice Peter Popovich, was hospitalized yesterday because of complications related to oral surgery.

Committee chair Edgar Olson expects to bring in a new advisor and resume deliberations before the end of the week. Charlie Weaver, the Anoka republican who filed the complaint against Bertram, says the legislature is running low on time to discipline the Paynesville DFLer.

CHARLIE WEAVER: Every day that goes by, we get closer to adjournment, I get a little more nervous about whether or not the democrats are serious about punishing Mr. Bertram. But I don't think we're in the bottom of the ninth yet.

KAREN BARTA: Bertram is accused of a half dozen incidents of intimidation and spreading of malicious rumors. Another campaign to free Leonard Peltier from prison will begin with a demonstration this afternoon at the federal court building in Minneapolis. Peltier was convicted in 1977 of killing two FBI agents during a shootout in June, 1975, at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Activists say Peltier is innocent.

A conference committee will meet tonight to put together wetlands legislation. State house and senate negotiators are trying to decide whether to stray from a list of changes to Minnesota's wetlands law agreed upon by several interest groups. The state forecast today, mostly sunny with highs in the 30s. And for the Twin Cities, sunny with a high in the middle to upper 30s. Tonight clear with a low around 14.

It's sunny around the region. In Duluth, the current temperature is 24 degrees. It's 26 Rochester. Saint Cloud reporting 25. And in the Twin Cities, it's sunny and 31. That's news from Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Karen Barta.

JOHN RABE: Welcome to the second annual Minnesota Public Radio Snowman Burning.

[CHEERING]

[FESTIVE MUSIC]

I'm John Rabe. We're broadcasting from the Saint Paul Fire Training Center in the shadow of the Saints stadium, just south of the state fairgrounds in Saint Paul. We have an air temperature of 30 degrees, sunny skies, but a wind chill of four. But that's all gonna change in less than 30 minutes.

When my dad returned from the cold war-- appropriately named-- during which he ran a propaganda unit that dropped leaflets on Soviet soldiers-- when he got back from Germany, he brought with him a story about how some Germans celebrated the end of winter. They'd burn a big effigy of a snowman in the town square and tell the kids that if they didn't behave, they wouldn't burn the snowman. And winter would not end.

This, by the way, is all true. My dad's story is true. And it's a fact that if we don't burn this eight-foot tall, chicken wire and newspaper snowman today, winter will never end.

My dad burned a snowman in Sault Ste. Marie for 20 years. They're going to be doing it again today on the campus of Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie just about an hour from now. In the next 20 minutes or so, we'll burn the snowman next to me with the help of the Saint Paul Fire department.

We'll listen to the music of the Cafe Accordion Orchestra, hear from special guest, Kevin Kling, and climatologist, Mark Seeley, find out about other end of winter rituals around the world from Brandy Parisi. And hear change of season poems written by our listeners. And that's the real highlight today. This is the second annual Minnesota Public Radio Snowman Burning.

[CHEERING]

[MUSIC CONTINUES]

I asked listeners to fax in poems, and listeners did it like crazy. We got several hundred poems. Some of the best are here today, and-- some of the best poets, that is. The first is a guy named Joe Muldoon from Saint Paul. How are you?

JOE MULDOON: I'm doing fine.

JOHN RABE: Would you read your poem for us?

JOE MULDOON: Stopping by Woods during a Slump in the Market. Whose woods these are, I think I know. I bet that I could bid it low, and up the ante. If he stalls. But either way, I'll make it go.

A syndicate from west Saint Paul wants to build a shopping mall. They'll be needing what I've got for excavation in the fall. I'll just hold it till it's hot and make a killing in one shot. If they don't bite, then I can break it into residential lots.

These woods are lovely-- no mistake. I'm on the go and on the take, with many millions yet to make, and many millions yet to make.

[CHEERING]

JOHN RABE: That's Joe Muldoon of Saint Paul. And now we introduce Shannon Luckert. Where are you from.

SHARON LUCKERT: Originally Milwaukee, but I live in Minneapolis now.

JOHN RABE: Could you read us your poem?

SHARON LUCKERT: Sure. This is called Long March. The Russians are out tonight, circling the twilit park in geriatric pairs. Park bench, white popcorn, gray wings, cutting sky, dull comforts and plaintive cries against endings. Day and season poised on edges-- the denouement of a homeland in the stale melancholy of yearning. Slavic hearts, arthritic with memory, may sharpen, may numb, but know finally that winter is on its wane.

[CHEERING]

[FUN MUSIC]

JOHN RABE: One of the fixtures of Minnesota Public Radio's Morning Edition is Bob Potter's Friday morning conversations with University of Minnesota climatologist Mark Seeley. Mark has agreed to-- I'm sorry. I'm stepping on his applause. Mark Seeley.

[CHEERING]

Mark has agreed to join us here on the Snowman Burning to explain what happened this winter and, better yet, what the spring holds. Thank you very much.

MARK SEELEY: [LAUGHS] Good, old fashioned winter this year. Well, there's some striking features, John. One is we started awfully early. We started snowfall accumulation in northern Minnesota in October. We started minus 40 wind chills in November.

And then, of course, we had the ice storm in January, which smothered the landscape in ice. And I suppose we'll see evidence of vegetation damage maybe as we recover in the spring. We also had the January 30 to February 5 period, which is historic. It was-- the average temperature over the state for that whole week was minus 20, which you had to go back to 1899 to find.

And so we survived that, and now we've started out March-- first 10 days of March were 15 degrees colder than normal. And despite the warmth and the loss of most of the ice we accumulated, it looks like the rest of the month's gonna stay colder than normal, too. So we're gonna to have to be patient.

MAN 3: [LAUGHS]

JOHN RABE: You have some inspiration for us, though, in the form of a poem. First Crocus by Cara Daly?

MARK SEELEY: Yes. And I hope that I can read this well with numb lips here.

JOHN RABE: I should say, too, that Cara lives up in Bagley and didn't wanna drive the four hours or whatever it takes to come down from Bagley. So, Mark's standing in.

MARK SEELEY: OK, here we go. First Crocus. A crocus seam cuts open the hibernating turf. A new realm breathes through, breathes faster, air shaking down spouts, chuckling with crispy showers. The driest scalp we tread upon will soothe itself with verdant fronds.

That's a nice image. I think we'll maybe look forward to that in April. John.

[LAUGHTER]

JOHN RABE: Thanks very much. U of M climatologist Mark Seeley.

[APPLAUSE]

[CHEERING]

The, uh, the extra burst of applause you hear is because the Friends School of Minnesota is here, represented by a class, and one of their students is here to read a poem. Hello. How are you.

EDWIN HOLMVIG-JOHNSON: I'm fine. How are you?

JOHN RABE: Not bad. A little chilly, to tell you the truth. You are Edwin Holmvig-Johnson and of the Friends School of Minnesota. You've written a poem that actually refers to a weatherman, so we thought we'd have you on to read it. Could you read it for us? What's it called?

EDWIN HOLMVIG-JOHNSON: Snowfall. I tie up my boots with great excitement, for the snow has fallen-- two to three inches, the bald man on the TV says. I put on my boots, step outside, and, oh, I sense the refreshing cold. My ears and face are stung ever so gently by the crisp winter wind. I love this winter, this snow, this white blessing from above.

JOHN RABE: Terrific. Thanks for coming.

[CHEERING]

[PLEASANT MUSIC]

BRANDI PARISI: The ritual burning of an eight-foot, chicken wire and newspaper is not so odd or violent when you consider some of the other ways Europeans recognize the coming of spring. I've heard one Scandinavian tradition involving a straw man and dynamite. The length and fertility of the growing season is predicted by the distance the dynamite blows the head off the body.

[LAUGHTER]

And old Slavic legend is right out of Days of Our lives. Mother Spring and Father Frost get together, and the product of their union is a lovely little girl known as the Snow Maiden. But the first time she goes out alone, the sun is so jealous of her beauty, he melts her.

In Germany, in tradition, right out of Calvin and Hobbes, a young woman we'll call Susie would represent spring, carrying apples and decorating herself with Ivy. She has a snowball fight with a character we'll call, oh, Calvin, who represents winter. In legend, Fraulein Susie always beats Herr Calvin.

JOHN RABE: That's Brandy Parisi. Another listener poem now from listener poet Patrice Clark Kelch. Thank you for coming.

PATRICE CLARK KELCH: This is a short poem by a very short person. It's called February Waning. This is a day to wrap your tongue around the world, to lick the mud and ice and wafer leaves, to snap the hollow stalks with your fingers, to set your green boots dancing on the broken waters of spring.

[CHEERING]

JOHN RABE: The poetry of Patrice Clark Kelch. On Midmorning today, you're listening to the second annual Minnesota Public Radio Snowman Burning. To my right-- your left-- is a big snowman made out of chicken wire and two-by-fours and a little bit of industrial tubing and a plastic bucket for a head and a rather surprised expression on his face. We're gonna to torch this with the help of the Saint Paul Fire Department-- entirely safely-- in just a few minutes. So stay tuned for that.

For our listeners at home who weren't brave enough to brave the weather, we've got a crowd of about-- it looks like 60 people here. So thanks very much, everybody who's out here.

[CHEERING]

You can hear 'em. And thanks for listeners at home, too, who are probably feeling the bitter cold out here. One of our best poems was from Annika Fjelstad, who--

[CHEERING]

Again, the audience response indicating that she's a teacher at the Friends School of Minnesota. Thanks for coming.

[CHEERING]

ANNIKA FJELSTAD: Greetings. My poem is called Walking Past a Poem-- a Spring Afternoon in Detroit. Beer bottles and curses breed beside the tire jacks. Dead cars sport for-sale signs. At Clark park, the flower man spray paints the chrysanthemums. The Knights of Columbus wait for hurried drivers to drop their guilt and quarters into bleach jars.

The neighbors' winter-- the neighbors' winter fights spread to porches. Everything will blow over, especially the trash. April '80s tricked the street people into donating their coats to charity.

The high school girls blossom into pink fashions and black leather boyfriends. Young hands escape the still, chilly winds inside each other's jacket cuffs. Sprawling schools empty themselves into orange buses.

Fathers beg for kisses as their babies stroll with lunchboxes too quickly towards independence. Old sofas, air in alleys. Chicken wire gates get left ajar.

Even mothers let themselves forget, this is Detroit. Birdsongs awaken empty warehouses. Shadows slant steeper, and days grow longer. Even in a vacant lot, a magnolia is a magnolia.

[CHEERING]

JOHN RABE: The poetry of Annika Fjeldsted of the Friends School of Minnesota. A poem called Walking Past a Poem-- a Spring Afternoon in Detroit. In just a few moments, we're going to check in with our special guest star, Kevin Kling. That's coming up in just a second.

Our house band-- and they are literally a house band today, because they are in this building out here at the Fire Training Center that the firemen routinely set on fire and then put out. It's the way they learn how to put out fires. In the building is the Cafe Accordion Orchestra, which actually has a gig coming up Tuesday at the Loring in Minneapolis.

They never played a song all the way through on last year's show. We never let 'em. But this year, we've decided we want to hear a tune. Dan Newton is their leader. Dan, can you tell us what the song is that we're gonna hear?

DAN NEWTON: [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH] The Return of the Nightingales.

[THE CAFE ACCORDION ORCHESTRA, "THE RETURN OF THE NIGHTINGALES"]

[APPLAUSE]

JOHN RABE: The music of the Cafe Accordion Orchestra, who play Tuesday at the Loring. It's now my pleasure to introduce our special guest star--

KEVIN KLING: [LAUGHS]

JOHN RABE: --Kevin Kling.

KEVIN KLING: Howdy.

JOHN RABE: Well, what do you think? Have you ever seen an event quite like this?

KEVIN KLING: No, I have to admit, no, this is a new one for me-- burning a snowman. Yeah, let him go.

[LAUGHTER]

JOHN RABE: What have you brought to read for us?

KEVIN KLING: I got a poem by Wendell Berry, one of my favorite authors. And this is a poem called A Purification. Let her rip?

JOHN RABE: Yes, sir.

KEVIN KLING: All righty. At the start of spring, I open a trench in the ground. I put into it the winter's accumulation of paper-- pages I do not want to read again. Useless words, fragments, errors.

And I put into it the contents of the outhouse, light of the sun, growth of the ground, finished with one of their journeys. To the sky, to the wind, then, and to the faithful trees, I confess my sins-- that I have not been happy enough, considering my good luck, have listened to too much noise, have been inattentive to wonders, have lusted after praise.

And then upon the gathered refuse of mind and body, I close the trench, folding shut again the dark, the deathless Earth. Beneath that seal, the old escapes into the new.

[APPLAUSE]

JOHN RABE: Kevin Kling on the Snowman Burning. Why'd you pick that?

KEVIN KLING: What? I picked this because it's time to start again. It's time to open the windows and say, I've had enough, and listen to the Jets go over. [LAUGHS]

[LAUGHTER]

JOHN RABE: All right, thanks for coming.

KEVIN KLING: Yeah. Thank you.

[PLEASANT MUSIC]

BRANDI PARISI: I'm Brandi Parisi. The snowman burning is a German tradition, but Germans do not have a monopoly on unique, end of winter rituals. Other countries get just as antsy for the warm weather.

In Italy, a strapping young man would wear black on one side of his body and white on the other, symbolizing light emerging from darkness. He wears a belt decorated with stars and carries flowers and ram over his shoulders. In Japan, the beginning of spring is actually celebrated January 1st. Every Buddhist temple tolls a bell 108 times. The tolling of the bells in Japan takes more than an hour.

In Beijing, the Beating of the Spring and the Gnawing of the Spring. The emperor would receive an effigy of the spring ox. The ox was then dragged and beaten to ward off pestilence and encourage field workers to be industrious.

[LAUGHTER]

Meanwhile, the women would eat turnips in order to ward off fatigue. I'm Brandi Parisi.

[MUSIC CONTINUES]

JOHN RABE: This is the Snowman Burning on Minnesota Public Radio. We're interrupting Midmorning to bring you this odd, little ritual that, as we said, started in Germany long ago, moved to Sault Ste. Marie, where they're going to burn a snowman in just an hour or so on the campus of Lake Superior State University. And then in just a few minutes, with the help of the firemen assembled here, we are going to burn the chicken wire and two-by-four and newspaper snowman. It doesn't look so much like a snowman as an upside down popsicle of some sort, but it's a snowman.

We asked listeners to fax in their poems, faxing because it's so expedient. And we got a great poem from Sarah Shrewsbury, who is the daughter of Mary Paul and David. Thanks for coming in.

SARAH SHREWSBURY: Hi. This is called Spring. The snow melts, the birds return, flowers bloom, and trees bud. Yet, still people die, still pollution, still drugs.

The air is warmer. The ice is gone. Easter comes. Happy faces. Yet, still teen pregnancy, still domestic violence, still child abuse, still tears. Seasons change, so why can't we?

JOHN RABE: That's terrific. Thank you.

[CHEERRING]

SARAH SHREWSBURY: Thank you.

JOHN RABE: In just a second, we're gonna hear a poem by Steve Swanson who drove up from Northfield. I think you have, Steve Swanson, the distance record today, driving up from Northfield. But I'm gonna read a poem that comes from a guy who couldn't make it in because he's on vacation. He's gone to Orlando or something.

So this is Kevin Steven's poem, and I don't even have a title for it. I think the top of the fax got cut off, but here it is, anyway. Where I am from, we don't have winter. No, that's not exactly true. We do have a winter. In Las Vegas, winter happens on a Thursday afternoon, about 4:30.

There isn't a snowplow within 400 miles. It did snow this year in Las Vegas, just like it did in my junior year in high school. Everything shut down-- all for less than six inches of snow. This was my first real winter, the first time that I made a snow angel.

Never before had I felt a tingle in my nose when I inhaled, I almost wished that I didn't know that it was my mucus freezing.

[LAUGHTER]

I kind of enjoyed the feeling before they told me. All eyes were upon me during this first winter. In the fall, when I told people that I had never had a winter before, the look on their faces was of untold joy and glee--

[LAUGHTER]

--describing to me in exacting detail what would happen to me and how miserable I would be.

[LAUGHTER]

They were wrong. I now live for the clarity that a winter night brings me. The cold flows through me and invigorates me. I walk, play, absorb. I can't wait for the next one. Maybe this time, I will learn to drive in it. Kevin Steven's poem about winter where he comes from and in his adopted home.

[APPLAUSE]

It's time to go now to Steve Swanson, a lovely poem called Spring's First Moth.

STEVE SWANSON: As this lifelong winter ends, the spring's first moth, who dives around my lamp, dissolves in April oh, my aghast tendency to swat. And all within me that would crush or slap or trap is happy now to live with, study, and protect that life, which by July will fly and crawl and gnaw and sting. And everything will change, and I will kill.

[LAUGHTER]

[APPLAUSE]

JOHN RABE: Amen to that.

[PLEASANT MUSIC]

It's now my pleasure to introduce again a fellow who made the journey out here last year and bore the cold weather, the assistant fire chief of Saint Paul, Warren Schaub. Hello.

WARREN SCHAUB: Good morning, John. Good morning, everybody.

CROWD: Good morning.

JOHN RABE: Well, you let us do this out here last year at the Fire Training Center. And, honestly, you got a few calls from people who thought that maybe we were encouraging unsafe fire practices. So I thought, well, we might as well be frank and address that question here.

What we're doing here is probably-- it might be a little crazy, but it's safe at the same time.

WARREN SCHAUB: Well, that's correct. We have training fires out here all through the year. This area is also monitored by the Pollution Control Agency.

We keep a standard checklist for safety issues out here. The personnel that work out here are familiar with not only putting out fires as a profession, but starting them for training purposes. So it's a completely safe environment right here.

JOHN RABE: What are they gonna do in the next few minutes with this snowman. Could you tell us? Describe it for us?

WARREN SCHAUB: Well, as soon as the order is given, they will torch off the snowman, and we'll celebrate the rite of spring.

JOHN RABE: You've doused it with diesel fuel, too, right?

WARREN SCHAUB: Yes, sir.

JOHN RABE: So that should help things along. But it's not gonna explode or anything like that.

WARREN SCHAUB: Gee, I hope not, John.

[LAUGHTER]

JOHN RABE: All right. Thanks very much. And now Dan Olsen is gonna come in place to do our color commentary, our play-by-play, Dan Olson of Minnesota Public radio, often known as the Velvet Fog.

[CHEERING]

Are you ready, Dan?

DAN OLSON: I'm ready John. I'm ready when you are.

JOHN RABE: OK, is he on mic? Are we ready to go with Dan? OK, and Warren Schaub, you will give the signal in just a second. I'm gonna run over to the scene of the fire and see if we can get a little sound of the flames. But go ahead and you can give the signal.

WARREN SCHAUB: Now, Captain Hawkinson, one of our training assistants there, will torch it off. Captain Hawkinson, go ahead.

DAN OLSON: And now Firefighter Hawkinson is setting the flame from the torch from the Saint Paul firefighting crew. The snowman effigy sitting atop the oak pallet. Now, we see the first burst of tongues of orange flames coming up from behind. The snow figure is now engulfed in intensely orange flame under a clear, blue canopy of sky.

[FESTIVE MUSIC]

Ashes rising into the sky. Black smoke swirling around the audience. We're ducking and dodging the ashes from the figure. It's almost all burned now. It's chicken mesh screening hanging disconsolately off the figure. The flames licking away now, going down to the feet. Going down-- going down.

Thank you. Put that fire out. I can't afford to lose any more hair.

[LAUGHTER]

And the flames are taking the last few inches off the effigy. I'm stepping back from the flames now. And the firefighters are standing by, watching carefully, extinguishers in place just to make sure no innocent audience members are harmed by this.

A V formation of geese in the sky, a swarm of robins there, heralding the onset of spring. There's a column of monarch butterflies just coming in now. The effigy is almost gone. It is truly spring in Minnesota.

[CHEERING]

[MUSIC CONTINUES]

[CHEERING]

JOHN RABE: I feel warmer, but I think that's because I was over micing the fire. Man. I would like to, at this point, to put in a special thank you to my friend, John Forti, who helped me build this snowman that is still burning. Terrific.

It does feel a bit warmer here. And thanks also to Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson. We closed last year's Snowman Burning with a poem by Vijit Ramchandani, a native of India who now lives in the Twin Cities. Last year, he read us a poem called Minnesota Nice, a consideration of Minnesota social depth and other things.

[LAUGHTER]

Today he joins us again to read a poem called Transmigrations. Please welcome back Snowman Burning poet laureate Vijit Ramchandani.

[CHEERING]

VIJIT RAMCHANDANI: Thanks, John.

[INAUDIBLE]

I don't know if I deserve the honor, but I just got back from India, actually. This guy tracked me down. I came back specially. And this piece was inspired by my trip. I just experienced a beautiful spring in northern India, and I come back to bring in America. And it's a lot about searching and starting over.

So my piece is called Transmigrations. Mostly the meaning of home is the feeling of spring sprouting from the gnarled roots of beginnings and endings, lost and found in a fragile peace with our pasts, and lovingly preserved amid the duty-free spoils of many jetlagged journeys between worlds. Beyond culture and the change of seasons, there is the safety of attachment to all things familiar-- the smell of Papa's leather keychain, the sound of the first rain before the monsoon, the sight of scarlet rhododendrons in full bloom on a Himalayan Hillside, the chorus of an old song singing--

(SINGING) --we're on our way home

We're going home

On our way back home

Mostly the meaning of home is chanced upon in musty closets lined with portable lives and vivid histories, dusted down and transported in socks and shoeboxes across time zones and lost luggage, full of old letters and lockets of hair and mottled mug shots on green cards enshrined in safe places. We have come with Gypsies in our bones, looking for a patch of ground to seed with the flowers of old gardens left to the fragrance of time, searching for the spirit of place and a touch of grace that is mostly the meaning of home.

A gaggle of voices between worlds where two accents become a third, and English as a Second language doesn't make it any easier to understand the weather in Minnesota--

[LAUGHTER]

--nor, for that matter, the magic moments that come from belonging to this feeling of spring, this land of possibilities, this harvest of a million tender visions called America. Thank you.

[APPLAUSE]

[CHEERING]

JOHN RABE: The poet laureate of the Minnesota Public Radio Snowman Burning, Vijit Ramchandani. Sara Anderson, could you make sure everybody has a song sheet. Because after I read the credits, I'm gonna ask all of you to sing with us Frosty the Snowman, to say a final goodbye to our friend who has served us well over the last half hour here at the snowman burning.

So we're just about at the end of another snowman burning. Thanks to our listener poets. Thanks to Kevin Kling and Mark Seeley. Thanks to the students and teachers of the Friends School of Minnesota, Thanks to the Saint Paul Fire Department and the Fire Training Center. The Cafe Accordion Orchestra, too, led by Dan Newton. To Carrie Johnson, Michael Erb, Laura Preves, Tony Ball from our marketing department, play-by-play man, Dan Olson, Brandi Parisi-- our folklore expert. Thanks to executive producer Mel Sommer, Midmorning producer Pro Tem, Stephanie Curtis and audio engineers. Rick Habzinski, Danny Hansen, Kevin Middleton.

Those three guys out here very early this morning. Also to Cliff Bentley back at the station. I'm John Rabe. Thanks for tuning in. And now let's hear frosty the snowman. Hit it, Dan.

[THE CAFE ACCORDION ORCHESTRA, "FROSTY THE SNOWMAN"]

(SINGING) --us all.

The snowman is dead. Long live spring. We now resume our regular scheduled programming. Thank you.

[CHEERING]

RADIO HOST 2: Thank you to John Rabe. What a terrific program, hearing all those poems written by listeners Kevin Kling, Mark Seeley, John Rabe, all the folks out there, thanks a lot for burning the snowman. And so we can get on with spring here. This is Midmorning on the FM.