Winter Chill

The silence is threatening,
Evoking the hollow menace of the Bates Motel....
I watch snow falling, incessant,
Splattering over starving chickadees
Fruitlessly rooting in the disrepair of my back yard.

The facade of Christmas intrudes,
Far too much jolly holiday
Looking like a cheap whorehouse in my Mormon neighbor's yard.

I feel vulnerable.
I used to love winter,
Night, chill, solitude....

Now resentments choke my laughter,
The body that no longer stays warm,
The voice whose high notes quaver and whose breath gives out.

The zombie of my youth staggers aimlessly down ice-covered sidewalks,
Where tinsel and flickering lights sabotage my resistance....

And after the holly-daze,
When the world descends again into the pit of icebound silence,
When the chaos subsides and once again there is
Silent snow, secret snow…

When once again I am alone in the chill, the darkness,
With no voices slithering by on the bitter wind,

Then what?

I will not be frightened of winter.
I will not fear the changes brought by age.
I will not be too tired to decorate.
I will not be Scrooge.

I am old, yes.
But I still gain joy in silence, darkness, solitude.
There are still thoughts in my head, words in my mouth.

Silent, private, hoarded up like the nuts under the stump
Waiting under the snow for the journey to resume.

I find solace in the silence, dreams within the darkness, warmth within the chill.
I remember my oft-chanted paean on "darkness, distance, silence"
And realize that the full measure of each
May only be measured against the yearly death of light and proximity and cacophony.

Winter fills me.
Winter rests me.
Winter refreshes and sustains me.

I suppose it is my Season, after all.


© Aisling the Bard
Winter 2008-2009