Cold Days

***

090131

COLD GETS OLD

Is this our third night
in this still-freezing bedroom,
or our fourth?

We lie under fabric strata;
sheets, blankets, quilts,
and fluffy clothing,
each night piled higher.

The cats sleep on top,
each night piled closer together.


090130

ICE COLD

My toes, under the covers,
are frigid. My fingers,
in the frigid air, are not.

I do not understand this,
or why I occupy my mind
with such a puzzle.


090129

ICING CONDITIONS

For light and heat the first few days
(or, rather, nights), we had tea-lights
and bedclothes.

We read books aloud to each other,
under four cats and a quilt.

Days later, at the discount store,
we found plenty of generators,
camp stoves, and chain saws.
There were also a few candles
and something that amused us—
no matches. No matches
at WalMart!

Similarly at the grocery store—
no bread. But plenty of cake.
We loaded up on Hostess snowballs.


0901278

STILL LIFE

Where do little sparrows go?

With ice above
and snow below,
where do little sparrows go?


090127

PRAYER

As above, so below.
May it be.

May we grow:
in willingness to ask,
willingness to do,
willingness to task—
to start and follow through.


090126

WRITTEN WRONG

Be mindful
of mindless mistakes.

Mistakes are like worries;
they proliferate.
They compound with interest.

Shut the door on them
and they break in
through every window.

Mine have invaded my computer—
well, the one on my desk
and the one on my chair
(specifically,
just above my shoulders).
or, drat! have I lost it again?


090125

LAST HURRAHHH

Let’s pretend
this is my end—
a last goodbye
at point of death.

Play-pretend
this is my end—
my final word,
my final breath.

Pray-pretend
this is my end—

Ahhhsome!


090124

LETTING GO

At today’s news
of the imminent sale
of our beloved Ozarks home,
I become unmoored;
relieved of ballast—
a balloonist lifting off—
an old woman
launching another
maiden voyage.


UNTITLED

A day in bed,
but not as an invalid—
unless preoccupation
with disease and
healing counts.


090122

PRE-MED CURRICULUM

Books on health and healing
have erupted on every bedroom surface.
They litter the floor like discarded facial tissues.

In one sense,
they have already done their healing;
they have revealed my spiritual hypochondria:
I have been trying to heal from suffering
that has not yet occurred.

In another sense,
they are cornucopias of consternation;
for it isn’t my own pain I feel called to relieve.

But whose?

***