Not until I drove up into the
hill town where I live did the snow come
blinding, heavy and deepening
In the house, I scanned the first few sentences of an article
written by a man of eighty three years living alone now
in his family home with all its history and all its absences.
He characterized solitude as a gentle power
and said sometimes, during the late hours, solitude becomes loneliness.
I didn't read far enough to learn how he characterized that.
I'd call it soft memories with razor edges, or maybe a
silent hungry lion with her gaze fixed on you
waiting for the moment you raise your eyes to hers.
I'm not eighty three, but after six months, I'm almost alright
in this place, in this skin, with this silence, without the rest of all of it,
maybe starting to feel, just faintly, the hum of some gentle power.
Loneliness comes with memory when it enters you too vividly,
from a gentle rain to a swirling, cutting, heavy squall
you can't see the road through.
It happens when comparing that to this,
when thinking this should be something else.
Three years ago now, a night between Christmas and New Year's began with an unexpected text message at a particularly low moment- an invitation nearly declined. Initially warmed by your humor; then bemused by you under the influence of alcohol; and then you took my arm on the icy sidewalk -look, there he is, already lost in it - and in no time after that, he could not help but kiss your head uninvited, his heart enfolding you like it had always been in love -the warm and growing hum of a gentle power.
And now, feeling this, comes the snow
blinding, heavy, deepening.
When comparing that to this,
solitude becomes loneliness.
When thinking this should be something else,
soft memories slice an artery imperceptibly
seeing the blood, you raise your eyes in surprise
and then the lioness.
