safer-at-home start
our first trip to town in 5 weeks
and the new reality is everywhere:
masked bandits entering banks
and mailing letters
it feels so different
seeing it all in person
my kind husband like a
stagecoach robber
and no end in sight
no way to know
how to best love
our loved ones
safe
this is the safe time
everyone snuggled in their beds
minds easy
in our cheerful cabin
at the end of the plowed road
we go unmasked
rambling around the hills
confident in our isolation
things are mostly black-and-white
in such a small world
we have already put the pieces together
in a way that spells out
safe
but soon
the closed roads will open
the drifts will melt
appointments will be made and kept
the wide world will beckon
and the confusion of a thousand choices
will return –
our life of too many options
for right now
I’m going to luxuriate
in this small quiet safeness
throw myself down
and make snow angels in it even
press my whole body into its
cold near-certainty
before brushing myself off
and steeling for the next wave
one month isolation
now there is time
to witness winter melting
to sit and listen to icicles drip
to watch snow go to water to wind
and yet
there is still not enough time
to do all that should be done
the hours are filled by so much less now
we forget how to be busy
accept going slow
isolation/grief
so many small sadnesses
including putting away
this last filled fieldbook
closing our adventurous chapter
staring down rows and rows
of weeks of going nowhere
feeling like we failed
to do what we said we would
so many plans scattered
in the flurry of leaving
if only I believed in the kind of god
who wanted me to submit
and trust his plan
having most options wrenched away
would be easier to accept
but beyond all these petty disappointments
we’re alive
and grateful
and past caring for little else
quarantine
every day longer and slower
than the last
filled with even less
the sun conspires
stays up even later
with a narrower lens
not shopping
almost a month
since I set foot in a store
probably the longest time in my life
except maybe college
(but I don’t think so –
College and Variety
Luigi’s and the Bookstore
Nothing but the Blues and Shaw’s
got a little of me here and there)
one month of gazing at the woods:
a terrible way to get better
the sleeping fox
when the horizon
is too filled with disaster
I train my internal eye
on the image of a sleeping fox
we watched him climb
the hill behind our house
on a day when
most of our world had melted
there in the warm
russet-brown of the pine duff
he circled then curled,
a fiery fluff of warm fur
lit by early spring sunshine
he knew nothing of our worries
and simply slept sound
and I watched in thanks
for the proof of a being
who could still dream
simple safe dreams
limbs loose, mind at ease
shut
these are the days of closing doors
cutting off connections
cordoning off wards
identifying and isolating
the smallest unit you hold dear
slide the pocket door into the void
close the border
abandon the gate
leave your post
wring your own hands and none other
don’t open the post
don’t shake on anything
we’re all going inside very dark spaces
sitting quietly
with only a small candle’s glow
learning slowly bitterly desperately
how rich life was
when anyone could barge in
and disturb our peace
snowsmoke
in the white woods
veils of snowsmoke
descend like drapes
unfurling from conifer crowns
cascading with a flourish and fizz
that sets the whole atmosphere asparkle
heightens the drama
anywhere you look
a cloud of crystals
may breathe down your neck
the very next moment
magical shimmer
and cold uncomfortable reality –
that’s how it is these days –
you gotta find a way
to make room for both
