On the Corner of Snow and Veer
I don’t think I’ll show you that one.
The way it has been worn into a mere line
or two, something blunt and less than genius. In fact,
a disservice to put that word so close to today, wherever
we are in history. Mostly, I was remembering those
I’ve grown apart from. Two fingers of a monstera leaf, splitting
inexplicably and in any given place, the way an aspen sapling juts from anywhere,
grass on a godscale, although it probably has to do with something more
predictable, like the site of a wound from a mule deer or that root that
escaped into the air.
Without precision we strive
to remember how to breathe,
the right way meaning deeply, or like a sail, which,
of course arrests our breathing entirely and we cough,
having forgotten that release
is equally important to taking.
This instrument I am, wind-powered, and like music
I saw a god enter the room when the window
was cracked and the curtains were drawn.
Billow, another word for incarnation. The way a curtain
hides a person, separates life from fiction.
In our home we have no curtains.
Light ravages unadorned, unwarned
that the inside world is largely manmade. Not
that we should apologize to light, for eventually it will fall on those
dried flowers or a photo of someone for whom
the wind no longer blows – both living on
and yet memory fleets more
than that other fragile, weeping thing.
I’m not someone who tends to look backward, but something about snow supercharges an impulse to remember and reflect. This week, it has me thinking about the different kinds of parting: intentional, accidental, passing, etc. The phrase “grown apart” is strangely beautiful to be such a common turn of phrase for something that bears a deep sadness.
I’m struck by the seeming randomness of growth around the base of a tree - the places where the tree seems to be giving life another go amidst the other debris of living.
I tried to move some dried flowers this week and, while near-unchanging, they shed like crazy.
With Gratitude,