Widows lashed with freezing
rainfall combined with
pelting and streaming since
late last night. Already this
morning, what patches of snow
remained are now refrozen
puddles. The rhythm of the rain
pounding us from the outside-in
just like the vascular dementia
you suffer from, that affects us
both, no matter how much we try
to emerge through spindrift
waves of misunderstanding,
always rising lightheaded toward
the glaze and the glare, so that
we can commence our practice
of trying all over again. The storm
roiling itself up to summon such
power to limn tree branches with
a coating of ice to make them
rattle as does glass in a shivering
wind. We, too, try to bear such
calamity by retreating into sleep
when overcome by the electrical
crackle of our missed connection,
the live wire unceremoniously
dangling and sparking on the ground.
After which we somehow ascend,
legs wobbling, and hold out our hands,
one to another, to the inexplicable
beyond words, which lodges itself
between us so that we can support
ourselves upright again, moving
as we do with much care, cognizant
that the line between harmony
and suffering is one in which
just a fluctuation in temperature
can produce either freezing rain
or a wintry mix that can either
force us into mutual concession
that we are not each other’s enemy
and to resurrect our respect
for one another, with a succession
of soothing words, a phrase,
the inclination of which can placate
and charm, so we can be restored,
or to leave our senses deadened
by a flash freeze of the heart.
