The Coming

We are waiting for winter.
We adore autumn but we
all know its but a twinkling.
It only takes one black night
of plummeting temperatures
and raging winds and the colors
will all fall down.
Ashes, ashes.
Then the winter comes.
We are biologically beholden
to this brute force. We get competitive,
stacking up whatever it is
that we believe will carry
us through the white days.
Wood.
Meat.
Sex.
Memories.
God.
Later we will burn through it all,
praying the heat will preserve us
for we are small and of little account
and winter takes a toll.
 
 

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9 Comments

  1. mike graves on September 26, 2013 at 2:02 pm

    We miis Colorado until November, we ate some muscadines right off the vine this week in youre honor, and will enjoy the extended fall away down south,oh native arkie

  2. nwhannas on September 26, 2013 at 2:17 pm

    Just sitting here, nodding.

  3. Melinda Viergever Inman on September 26, 2013 at 3:18 pm

    This is it exactly. You captured the creeping ominous anxious gnawing in my ancestral-driven gut. Stack it up!

  4. kellyatlovewell on September 26, 2013 at 5:03 pm

    ::shiver::

  5. scriptordeus on September 26, 2013 at 5:43 pm

    I live in the coldest province in Canada (Manitoba) and I totally relate! I often dread winter too, but there is something about those long dark nights of dreamy introspection and cocooning with the one I love. Winter hibernation makes the other three seasons all the sweeter.

  6. nance.mdr on September 26, 2013 at 10:53 pm

    and heaps of spaghetti

  7. ElenaLee on September 27, 2013 at 11:07 pm

    I like winter–the way it burns everything down to the basics. But your poem gave me another perspective on it, one worth pondering.

  8. Autumn querulousness | Seashell Nell on September 12, 2014 at 8:11 pm

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