I’m 66

What do I need,
another gift, another
card, another
victory, another day?

I’m 66, December is
a crumble of bad
weather, snow, wind,
short light.  Life has
its grievances and
successes, those
moonless thoughts.

What do I need?
Perhaps another
thought, another way
through the endless
detritus of events
swinging with the
hour hand.  Perhaps
a new way of
passing a moment,
of leaving a trail
which will not
disappear — words
which freeze in
someone’s memory.

Stepping stones
across the expanse of
waiting, which is an
ocean, which is so
treacherous, which
is crackling and
devolving time.

Hobbiton

Dear J.

After so long, I was
surprised to hear from you,
astonished to read that
you wanted your words
returned.  Should I
send them Fed Ex?

I still recall them, though
whatever emotion was
attached to them at the
time has deconstructed,
like frost on the kitchen
bay window on a very
cold, dead winter day,
before the sun.

Hoarfrost, they call it,
when it adherers to trees
and other items exposed
to the elements.  When it
clings to people and
events, I’m uncertain.

You can certainly have
all your words back, I’m
not married to them, as
I’m not married to you.

The weather here has
improved.  Sunlight slants
through the east windows,
slips along the floor,
waltzes along fragile
spider webs by the fridge.

The front door is locked,
as it always is, the welcome
mat long removed.  In
the quiet of alone, time has
worn a path through memory,
left scars on the body of
being without you.

November Snow

Snow falls, sings me songs
from a periglacial place,
in a world as wide as
the street light’s fetch. 
Snow falls.  I gag on each
unique flake.  Remind me how
global warming is changing
lives.  Snow.  I collapse,
become an angel and the blanket
constricts each motion.
Snow falls.  Tonight is a vise,
the cold a needling pain.
The air, viscous in my lungs,
rasps with each shovel of effort.
Fallen leaves are rust in white
where winter adheres to
the sidewalks and pine. Autumn
is a forgotten victim and I’m
frozen in its graveyard.  This is
a time of disappearances.  Snow
falls.  The world is too fragile. 
Snow falls in dizzying spirals,
memories and spinning wraiths.

Life Is

Risking love.  Hell,
it hurts to lose, but
to never have, those are
the restless, endless
nights, the storm which
seems to tear everything
away.  The puddles
in the morning aren’t
a salve, a balm, a visa
back.  The reflection
you see in them is just
a dream, a way to exist,
with adjustments, through
the weight time places
on you.  Laden and leaden,
you struggle forwards.
You dream and rearrange,
as though life is a room,
where too many items are
out of place, too many lines
running away in directions
you never anticipated.
Life is a problem, whose
resolution resides down the
road, a few minutes away
from being frozen into history.

Just Before Midnight

Perhaps one day I will remain
fog and hidden behind that fence,
find (there is no sun, just
the fantasy of poor sight) (there is
no need for meaning when all
meaning is as elusive as
dancing with smoke) (there is no
road to follow, just the entropy
of place, of hand, of toes, of
life swirling like still eddies in a
frozen stream) the peace which
comes from not needing to
understand, to create a carapace
in which to transport purpose.