One room, one position which is frontward.
What lies ahead is ocean, sky, snow and a flashing
red light. It is winter, it is north, bleak, cold,
grey, white, bright. All that.
What more it is is space. The cape road ahead blocked.
In fact there is no road, summer is erased,
the birds gone, flowers asleep, like
when someone leaves you and takes love with them or
dumps it at your feet in a great cold sack.
It is awhile before the eyes adjust to nothing,
to seeing how much is there. It takes a trying on of
patience, a wrestle with your indignant soul,
nerve.
Try standing (if the wind backs off)
a little at a time, only don’t move, let
the time add up, let it
have its say. I swear
this is the way to love
to regain the winter, the north,
the frozen earth on which you stand.
~ from Going Around with Bachelors (Brick Books, 2007)
