When the Snow Falls on the Longest Night

I can’t sleep in this light
this orange light on this long night
December twenty-first.
It feels like a full moon
and I am so hungry.
I drink heavy cream like a cat.
I go walk alone through the drifts
the silence is magical
all sounds fall dead against the snow.
The cars are stranded
leaving only people
free on the streets
to ski and skate along, giddily.

I’ve waited till midnight
under these bursting skies
for the day to turn from getting shorter
to getting longer.
Our most enduring optimism:
there will be more light.
The snow piled up in great heaps
and everything glows with silver, and white and gold.

Regarding Perspective

I burned my lip on Mitchi’s teapot
the one she brought from Japan
after the war
where her baby and husband died
fleeing the bomb.
She married a dickhead soldier
who later raped her sister.
I only lament being cold.

David Was an Introvert

David was an introvert. The kind of guy who got along better with pets than people. Maybe his father killed himself when he was young. He lived in the big blue house on the other side of the ivy covered fence. Lived there with a woman who I presume was his wife but had the look of being more like a sister. David would go running sometimes. He wore nothing but flimsy little blue running shorts and shoes and socks. His mop of dark hair would flap behind his crown of baldness. He would run fast and come striding back into his yard on his long skinny legs with his bare chest heaving. Like a train wreck, I couldn’t help looking.

He came outside to work in the yard sometimes. Except for when he was running he moved very slowly. His other outfit was a blue flannel shirt and jeans, even in the summer. He was one of those people who got lucky in style from 1988-1993 but that’s all over now. David didn’t care. He had two cars. A late model but not new royal blue Ford Thunderbird and an old minty blue Chevrolet boat, I don’t know which model. He usually parked them one behind the other across the street. One day a car coming down the steep hill to the t-intersection of our street misjudged the right turn and crunched the corner bumper of David’s old car. They drove off without stopping. David didn’t work, or at least he didn’t leave the house everyday in any sort of work-like schedule. He barely left the house at all. On Sunday mornings he would come out followed by the mousey blond woman. They didn’t look dressed for church. They got in the Thunderbird and drove off.

Sometimes David would be out sweeping the sidewalk or tending mysteriously to some chore in the yard when I came home. He would look up but would never be the first to speak. If I didn’t say something we would pass in silence. But I always did, even during those months that I was mad at him for tagging along behind our other jerk-face neighbor who stormed into our yard one evening all red in the face and oozing Napoleon complexity, demanding to speak to “the renters” after we lit off some fireworks (good ones from the BC rez too). David was a follower. I couldn’t hold that against him.

So I always said hello and he was glad to talk, albeit clumsily. He didn’t offer much conversation from his side. But he held his gaze steady wanting more from you. I often closed with a several rounds of farewells tossed back over my shoulder as I huffed bags of groceries or the baby seat up the stairs to the yard, “Well, nice seeing you, David.” “Okay, take care then, David.” By the time I got to the front door he would still be standing at the edge of our yards in his blue flannel and hunched shoulders peering around the shrubs.

One day he met his match in our friend Michael whom he must have happened upon while Michael was smoking out front under the big cedar tree. Michael falls along the left-hand continuum of social uniqueness too but in a completing functional way – hyper-functional even. His father killed himself. He likes cocaine. He talks more than anyone I know, even my mother. But there are interesting things peppered into the constant stream of dialogue. He cares nothing for social mores or political correctness but is full of emotion and has an exact and lasting memory. He’s damn funny as a result.

I don’t know how long he was out there talking to David, but he came inside with more information about him that I had ever uncovered. David was an amateur radio broadcaster. Had a studio in his basement. Sure enough, there was a huge antenna on his roof that I once saw him fiddling with. His old minty Chevy had a cryptic license plate that apparently was his call sign. I imagined his basement was outfitted like some kind of bunker. If there was ever a disaster I could use my weird anti-social cat that David and his sister-wife liked to gain access to his food stores and radio.

I don’t see David anymore. We’ve moved away. But his cars are still parked out front when I drive past from time to time. Last night I had a dream about him. He was down in the arboretum raking up huge piles of leaves. He was there with my dog, Blue.

Dear Kat

Dear Kat,

Love the Black Bear.
He goes with Panda Bear.
And Polar Bear.
And Brown Bear.
Oliver likes Bears.

He loves opening packages too,
so the presents under the Christmas tree are a very thrilling thing.

We have snow, amazingly, after two whole days,
it hasn't melted.
Feels cold like the Midwest
on a good day.
The mountains in the winter
are breathtaking
when you can see them;
I gasped today.

Gas is cheap;
you two should drive out here in the spring
and just bring the dogs.
Poor little Gabby.
You gave her a good life.
Pavel would have fun at the dog park
by our house. When's your next break?

I won't see you this year, so
Merry Christmas!

Until the winter breaks... Love, Dawn

The Narcissist

I fall in love with words that I write
because I am so in love with me.
A true narcissist. I unwilling admit.
The dictionary is open to the n’s. How convenient:
naphthalene to nasal.
This self-admiration is hobbling.
I welcome growing old.
A narcissist hates rejection.
I’m going to turn around all the mirrors
so I can see only others.
What are these hands even then?
If they can’t illuminate what’s within?
They’ll leave behind narcissism.
My old cold hands will seek
the ineffable and
the intrinsic
in private
unreflected
consciousness.

Long Night Moon

Tonight. A surplus of moon to counter just a glipse of sun. For all you night owls...

http://stardate.org/radio/program.php?f=today

The Days of Rain

Yesterday it started to rain.
Still summer and warm
but the rain had the smell of winter.
It overcame me in one accidental breath.
I looked up to the sky squinting
(no slumping for me).
I stand tall in the rain
when it catches me,
off guard and umbrellaless.

Soon the rain will be routine
like so many things
and the smell will be the smell of everyday
and not a special one.
But yesterday it was summer
and the smell of fall was new to this year.

The days of rain are for taking it slow.
Leaves that fluttered by yesterday
now painted on to the sidewalk.
Flattened out and pasted beneath my feet like wallpaper.

The days of rain make me think of warm sweaters
and roasted chickens and fires
in the living room.
Of bundling up and pulling on
my waterproof boots
to walk the dog through wind and rain
when no one else is around.
Of the shelter of four walls
and a shingled roof
and the warmth of the kitchen stove.
There will be wind storms
and much talk of the weather.
The sound of traffic will be drowned by
the steady beating of rain
and everything will be green.
These are the days when you hold your lover tight.
When you feel a little bit crazy on the inside.

Song for a New Generation

I’m being anointed, at age thirty,
to speak for us, my generation.
What is it that you would like to hear?
Shall I tell you that we are unique?
We are innovators with fresh ideas?
That we made pornography at age 20?
Had an abortion at 22?
That we are smarter than our parents
and technology will save the world?
Racism is dying?
All our artists work in advertising?
We will network our way to greater intelligence?
Or YouTube our way to greater ignorance?
Cursive writing is dead?
Anonymousness satisfies our listlessness?
We are all winners in 42nd place?
We excel in passivity
and counteract with extreme sports?


The wind still blows.
Babies still cry in the night.