I came from a place
of far off spring-times,
of never-quite-relenting winters
and summer mirage waves
that cooked up off the roofs
of houses in a derelict cul-de-sac.
Not a place for high fantasy.
Not a place for star-crossed lovers.
Maybe a six-pack and a Saturday night,
domestic quarrel with the neighbors,
nerves frayed thin
as winters fingers hang on
and stretch that last one
out.
This isn’t something you can take a break from.
This kind of life
is hardwired
and final as a death sentence.
The cold wind blows
and more snow falls,
only to be half melted in the daylight sun,
then frozen into ice
that makes walking treacherous.
And the days
are just getting a little longer,
but I know I will miss the night.
Friends tell me of places
where it is never winter
and I think they’re weak.
Co-conspirators
with the Global Warming crowd.
In this slushy-grey in-between world,
my mistrust of the outside is made complete
by proclamations of spring
and pictures of flowers blossoming
in my cousin’s garden in Victoria.
Sure, I could leave;
lead us out of this transition
and into the next season of life,
but I am old hat
when it comes to clinging to my discomforts
and my disappointments,
and it will be another month or so,
before I am willing to let go.
I have been shaped by this place;
so it seems.
Fashioned by the incomplete;
completed by the half-light
of another season to come.
HG – 2017
