This February

This is a few months late but...better late than never.

When the black fireplace almost burns every night,

the sweet-smelling smoke rising to the roof,

and the basketball hoop still stands to the side of the driveway,

half-buried in snow,

and the mysterious neighbor

who walks out only once a day for mail,

and never says hello,

and it is a perilous journey to get up the driveway,

steep and slick,

and your feet cringing as they touch the morning floor,

tiled and unforgiving,

you begin to wish the time away,

counting and counting,                                                                                                                             anticipating the heartening days that never seem to come.

Nonstop

Because this morning I woke up

to see a lurking night sky,

covered with a cloak of grey---

 

and because I watched the light rise

like a phoenix---

knocked down every night,

only to rise again,

rising, rising, rising

as night shrunk for temporary inexistence---

and because the air was calm and cool

and morning dew littered the grass,

I sat out on our low, weathered picnic table

with a ladybug strolling across my palm,

staring into the unmoving woods

as the twisted knots stared back

and the trees stood straight and silent like obedient soldiers,

everything still except the tall, unruly weeds

that danced as they were swept up

until the wind came to a halt and

everything slowed,

stopped---

the world stopped.