It still hasn't snowed yet where I live. Flipping through some of my old files, I came across a poem I wrote last year, as I tramped through Cambridge on a white-sky, white-ground day. Brings back memories of winter-- which hasn't quite hit either Long Island, where I am now, or Boston.
The pictures below are thanks to my artsy roommate who captured bits of my hometown when she came to visit over Thanksgiving. Not much has changed-- the pond hasn't frozen over yet, as it should, and last I visited, ducks were still swimming happily in its waters.
The pictures below are thanks to my artsy roommate who captured bits of my hometown when she came to visit over Thanksgiving. Not much has changed-- the pond hasn't frozen over yet, as it should, and last I visited, ducks were still swimming happily in its waters.
Photocred: Meng Chen
Photocred: Meng Chen
Winter Wandering
Salt freezes upon brick,
brick burns with cold,
tingling and the old-age
spots appear at the surface,
roots of them penetrate
like eyes, pupil-less and rimmed
with frost-lashes.
The cold ages, latches death-sentences
onto flowerbeds and candlewicks--
my breath disappears as a moist
spirit traveling cloudward,
joining other breaths, other quietly
trawling voices filling the sky.
Under the snow, something must
be moving, something yearning to be
hit by the dim and budding sun,
surrounded still by white, a
white impenetrable,
a black that crusts out of
shadow into white.
My footsteps crinkle
as the church bells proclaim another hour.
The clock has icicles for hands.
I wait for summer,
knowing everything will melt to color.
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