All morning the stores were packed with people saying to one another, "It's coming. It's coming." And now it's here, the first storm of the winter. And man oh man, it's coming. Coming and coming. Here's a recent poem of mine, published in Chautauqua's 25th Anniversary issue:
WINTER PSALM
Boston snowbound, Logan closed, snowplows
and salt-trucks flashing yellow, drifts
tall as a man some places, visibility poor,
I sit by the window and watch the snow
blow sideways north-northeast, hot cup
in hand, robe over pajamas.
You have made me to seek refuge
and charged me to care for my brothers.
How cruel. That could only be You out there
howling, cracking the trees, burying everything.
What could I possibly want from You
that would not undo the whole world as it is?
Hope the larder's full, the fire is warm, and you have a good book in your lap.
1 comment:
The snow is one of the few things I miss about living in the northeast. Or rather, the way people respond to the snow is. Here in North Carolina a heavy snowstorm gives local media an opportunity to push hysteria onto us. We raid grocery stores bare, we drive as if we've forgotten the basic laws of friction. This is not atypical of a Boston storm.
What's missing is the fellowship, the looking out for one another. Though I sometimes found Bostonians hostile after the thaw, in every winter storm I felt people look on me as another soul weathering the cold. Here we never learned to cope with the wind and snow, and in fear we retreat into ourselves. We stoke the fires too but each to his own home. This is contrary to typical southern hospitality, of course. Maybe it's because we live so much farther apart than ye Yankees.
Then again, it was 70 degrees here today. Maybe we're just confused by not quite having seasons to guide us through the year.
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