Storm Linus is spraying another foot or so of on top of the two feet we already have. Snow on snow.
Every so often plows go by in pairs, heaping the snow against the sides, making the city's snow problem into my snow problem, but afterwards it's silence again. White on white without shadow, so the channels, grooves, paths and passages painstakingly excavated after the last storm are now invisible, their edges and heaps smoothed into undulating contours, near and far are indistinguishable. Where is anything?
The birds, flock of black starlings, are active however. I see them in the vacant lot next door perched on branches and twig, flying from one place to another within the compass of the flock place, then suddenly all streaming at once down the road to a destination unknown (and hard to imagine as better). Black on white, as sharp a contract as possible.
The fast food dispensaries at the foot of the hill are an endless source of stray french fries, muffin bits, scraps of paper smeared with ediblia. Sometimes the little fowl wrangle over this or that scape, chasing each other across the snow yet not sinking in it.
It may be that your thoughts as you sit huddled on your perches, black cloaks pulled tight around you, flakes falling on your gleaming, pebble-like eyes whenever your lids are open, are not 'How much longer do I have to wait?' or 'I should have made other plans,' or 'Please, just make it stop.' Instead, you may experience discomfort (surely you do) with a resignation untainted by resentments, reproaches, rage. Wi.nter is as it is; if a crumb of comfort can be found, fight for it; otherwise submit to the exigencies, wait and watch.
It's slim pickings for you here, but you are opportunists of the first water; you've survived other winters. Blow the wind as it may, you sweep here and there on your little quests, until as night falls, you huddle under the boughs of some tree like the Scotch pine in my back yard, and hope for morning.
Every so often plows go by in pairs, heaping the snow against the sides, making the city's snow problem into my snow problem, but afterwards it's silence again. White on white without shadow, so the channels, grooves, paths and passages painstakingly excavated after the last storm are now invisible, their edges and heaps smoothed into undulating contours, near and far are indistinguishable. Where is anything?
The birds, flock of black starlings, are active however. I see them in the vacant lot next door perched on branches and twig, flying from one place to another within the compass of the flock place, then suddenly all streaming at once down the road to a destination unknown (and hard to imagine as better). Black on white, as sharp a contract as possible.
The fast food dispensaries at the foot of the hill are an endless source of stray french fries, muffin bits, scraps of paper smeared with ediblia. Sometimes the little fowl wrangle over this or that scape, chasing each other across the snow yet not sinking in it.
It may be that your thoughts as you sit huddled on your perches, black cloaks pulled tight around you, flakes falling on your gleaming, pebble-like eyes whenever your lids are open, are not 'How much longer do I have to wait?' or 'I should have made other plans,' or 'Please, just make it stop.' Instead, you may experience discomfort (surely you do) with a resignation untainted by resentments, reproaches, rage. Wi.nter is as it is; if a crumb of comfort can be found, fight for it; otherwise submit to the exigencies, wait and watch.
It's slim pickings for you here, but you are opportunists of the first water; you've survived other winters. Blow the wind as it may, you sweep here and there on your little quests, until as night falls, you huddle under the boughs of some tree like the Scotch pine in my back yard, and hope for morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment