Coping with Terminal Stillness: Poems, Short Stories, and Other Broken Things

Winter

She used to get quiet

come late October

when the soggy blanket of clouds

drew up to her throat

and suffocated her silently,

when the air dried out and crystallized

or fanned her cheeks

with mist from heavy sighs

at the sight of it all.

Winter in New York

could last eight months

in a bad year, and six in the best of times.

If you didn't like cold, dark, grey

and slushy, you could get

depressed. Or at least down

with no real explanation

handy.

So an uneventful drive

of 736 miles

through brightening evergreens

and milder air, to a town

in the shadow of the southern

Appalacians

seemed a life-saving journey

of forgiveness and retribution.

And the air last night

was moist and mild

Sixty-two degrees on Christmas Eve

in an uncharacteristically

soggy trailing mist that

tomorrow's winter sun will remove.

And she smiles more now.

And she cries less.

And it has all been worth it.

Spring

As snow begins to melt away

the mighty sun agrees to stay

just a while longer in the blue

to watch the things we humans do.

The expanding day permits

each of us a few minutes

to look around and verify

that birds from southern climes still fly,

that animals once hibernating

are indeed alive and mating,

that grass that's peeking from below

the last bare vestiges of snow

is green and vibrant as it was

last autumn. And that's good because

a winter that goes on indefinite

soon loses all its charm and benefit

with everything that's cheerful lost

beneath a plate of permafrost.

The human mind requires a thawing

lest the psyche bend to gnawing

limbs off in a bid for freedom

granted by a passing green thumb

that nurtures shoots and leaves with care

and brings to flourish what once was bare.

This is the great equalizing

when all that once was dead is rising

from the ashes of the cold.

It's just as wise king Solomon told

us in Ecclesiastes one:

There's nothing new under the sun.

And so we smile as winter softens

and we hope to see it often.

As many years as life may grant us

each one is a gift. We can't just

squander such a precious thing

as every gorgeous, wondrous Spring.

Summer

Summer's known for sunshine

sometimes thick, oppressive heat and sweat.

Summer's known for family vacations

time away from work and school obligations.

Summer's known for long days and short nights,

expanding possibilities and imagination.

But in some lands, summer's not known.

Imagine the cold, barren tundra of the deep north,

where the wind blows constantly across an ice field

devoid of trees or shrubs, just endless, drifting snow.

Flat snow broken on occasion by higher outcroppings

of snow-covered rock piled atop snow-covered rock.

Where the only creatures stirring have been gifted with

layers of life-sustaining blubber and fur

to seal them off from the constant barrage of

horizontal ice-pricked snow that comes down in torrents

or simply blows up from the ground on a bright day

beneath a sun that feels so far away, not an ounce of

warmth will ever touch the surface of this forgotten land.

This is summer.

Summer's known for what you get where you are

when Mother Nature tires of giving you her worst.

Autumn

Last year,

the autumn in New York

was grey and crisp

with windy wisps of leaf-fall

scraping a crumbling backyard

stairway.

This year,

the Carolina autumn

is sunny, mild

and quiet with the same

leaf-fall, but somehow less

denuded.

Creation

(With appropriate nods to Genesis chapter 1)

The page is blank

with darkness in its bright white,

formless and waste

with a spirit moving to and fro

over the surface of the paper

And I proceeded to say

let there be light!

and ink appeared, darkening the white,

lighting the dark

and I came to see that it was good

and I went to sleep.

And I went on to say

"let there be space between the words,

and let a division appear between the thoughts,"

and there was, and there is:

A comma, indentation, a sentence, a paragraph

subheads and chapters

Thoughts in bite-size chunks

and I came to see that it was good

And I went on to say

"let the thoughts be brought together,

and given concrete form and publishable means,"

So my fingers found the keyboard and

look! an e-mail query letter followed by another

and another

and another

and another, each according to its kind

And the world began to give forth rejection letters,

each according to their kind, and delightful to look upon

and I came to see that it was not good

but it was ok

And I went on to say

"why should I continue to work and sweat and type and grumble

without fair pay and respect and reward?"

And nothing happened.

And I went on to say