Category: Writing

Three squirrels candy cane stripe their way up the trunk of the front yard maple. It’s warmer but not warm.  Grassy lawn pokes through threadbare snow. Bright air, bright sky, new year. Somewhere, a family struggles through cancer. Somewhere else, someone’s preparing to propose. Endings, beginnings, what we carry year to year.

Two ravens, or maybe crows, squawk from tall pines at opposite ends of the street. The pines become the towers of a castle, large birds standing watch. This is when I want to call them rooks but I look it up and they live across the ocean. So do all the castles.

Wanting to warm our bones beside the fire – sentiments unique and universal as old as time. Loss and longing too – we can’t own these things or tuck them into our pockets like a stone picked up from the beach, worn smooth, rubbed smooth, slow wishes, damp bones, slow evenings and warming fires.

On the morning walk, I mentally composed bad lyrics to the tune of “Get Back” by The Beatles. Kimbrough was a dog who came from Cincinnati / and he was a big ol jerk. / Matt adopted him thinkin’ he’s not a baddie / he just needs a little work. / Get Back.

I have no say in the color of the sky – probably a good thing. Bands of soft pinks and peaches pale the early light. Slight hues on the slick black road mirror the dawn. Every day a new palette on the horizon breaks the monotony of this otherwise routine life. Thank you.

In the nighttime, when the colors of the sky have drained to bluish-black, I find inspiration refuses to sit and have a drink with me – and so I drink alone, scanning the landscape for something, anything to spy and see and maybe put to words. Fifty-two of them. Frozen ground, nothing stirs.

The afternoon sun drags a low arc across the southern sky. Behind a veil of clouds, its soft light washes the trees and snow and picture window in antiseptic winter grays and whites. These are the tired days followed by long and slow lamplight nights, heavy boots drying by the mudroom door.  

The dog tears the left antler off the reindeer. A torn seam, a weakness, a type of breach. Animal instinct says find the soft spot – pull everything out. The other antler came next. A hole in the head and soon the plush is gutted. Batting strewn across the floor. A Christmas massacre.

Freeway traffic rivers quickly towards the city. Cars speed and break, swerve and break, ride close and break. I circle the block not sure if I can fit in that spot or that one. I used to do this every day. Out of practice, I’ve lost my sea legs. I’m less self-assured.

Winter cold, rain, and slush. My race is against the coming freeze. I need to get over the mountain. I have maybe an hour. Before every bridge, a sign I used to ignore: bridge ices before road. I tense a little. I anticipate the slip. At every curve I expect a slide.

I watch the snow. I watch the snow and think. It seems… without metaphor or simile. It falls. It drifts. It piles up. It blankets. Mostly without comparison to much else – other than more snow. The snow looks soft and feathery like a new down comforter – of snow… but not much else.

Today, Wednesday, is the winter solstice – the shortest day. The sky burns red in the morning and I’m thinking an apex can also be a middle. On our march towards the equinox, we’re halfway there – keep going, or is it turn around? Did we reverse course? Either way, our light grows longer.