Still Winter
STILL WINTER
We sat on our enclosed porch
drinking tea, watching the snowfall
through the golden glow of streetlights
and nearby living rooms, on the wooded
hill across the street
Owls, falcons and hawks hunt this
neighborhood, red fox live behind our
neighbors’ house, present themselves in the
lit backyard where the deer have just passed
and the unpredictable humans are clearly benign
behind dining room glass. Raccoons time our
movements, their beady eyes masked, their
sustaining geography a network of landmarks
only they understand
I was working on a poem:
“…..In November’s early cold she had
talked about love. In January’s snow, she spoke
of it again. In the season still winter, she decided
she’d been wrong and touted her leaving as an
equinox gift, an offer of relief that would calm
his anxiety before the land became warm.
Spring did arrive, sweaty and breathless,
an itinerate healer with too many appointments,
and the truth he thought he’d seen faded like the
moon on a cold sunny morning like the wolf he
thought he’s seen, maybe once, maybe twice,
near the clearing in the woods where they had
walked holding hands…..”
“Is that poem about us?” my wife whispered
sweetly, looking out the window and warming
her hands on an artisan’s mug of chamomile tea
“No, Honey!” I said, watching the snowfall
remove the sharp edges of the entire
neighborhood, feeling glad to be alive in a
poem of my own, living in this house
with this woman, this winter!
Emanuel Carter
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