Snowstorms Pass and Trees Fall

The unsure shadows of a hazy fading snowstorm tell of the impermanence of life and time. Why are these the Forgotten Forms? We all recall the knife-edge lines between light and dark on a Snow Yard under a Sun Sky, but how did I forget that shadows still form when snow falls and the light exhales its waves through foam of crystal cloud? 

I am all Question and no Answer today.  

Life flipped on me in less than an hour and how long do we long for our mothers? Fathers are not unimportant, they just never fed us from their insides. No wonder the cold metal distance of utensils is a reminder of their own machine upbringing. Having no nourishing umbilicus. Having no breasts engorged with colostrum's clotted cream. 

Every field veined by fallen wood is a reminder of the mortality of our Family Tree. The tree we thought would grow forever, spanning fences, fat with fruit, ripe for climbing. Daphne’s wooden joints creak from chemotherapy when all she ever wanted to be was soil.  

“Outlook is everything.”  

“A great attitude will go far.” 

I am a Lemon Daughter from a Lemonade Mother.  

On Christmas Eve morning I woke before Jim, a rarity for our relationship as I require the temporal sleep of a baby, and he asks for nothing more than the lucky seven of slumber. The zero-degree morning of a five-degree day (always Farhenheit for me in reference to flesh) saw me on the back patio, bundled in Jim’s old Burton snowboard coat and my mom’s old Sorrel boots.

The clothes of loved ones. I still wear Kali’s dresses, missing the way she’d gather me into her arms and against the breasts that took her away. That’s not fair. I even told her, “this is not your body’s fault, love your body, it’s not your enemy.” She died anyway and it’s the death I haven’t come to terms with yet.

Even on the patio of our midtown home, packed close together with houses that share rare similarities - so close to the Siren Hospital and under the path of the incessantly Circling Helicopter - it was quiet magic on Christmas Eve morning. So, I decided to start every morning on the patio, peeking over the fence to catch the sun, letting the birds get used to me again. A habit I’ve kept up to this day, a Gunter’s chain of 57 days. A habit I didn’t know Jim noticed - tho how could he not - until eight inches of snow fell. The next morning, I walked out to a patio deep of snow except for one chair, blown completely clean, ready for me.  

If Love is more Action than Thinking, I fear I’ve been Lazy. Fluff yourself with inhalable air of insulated feathers and remember we all must sleep sometime.