Showing posts with label December. Show all posts
Showing posts with label December. Show all posts

Sunday, December 30, 2018

tepidity


I said my feet were frozen,
he did not care
but took notice of my canvas shoes
atop the icy mud.

The fire he made,
started by Him,
should have been
enough-

but the wood was wet
atop the dirt that was sand,
the grass still green despite the dew
the smoke swirled
inside the pit.

His forehead and eyes settled into the comfortable scowl,
his red cheeks took upon themselves an orange glow
and I knew he felt
contentment.

I smiled at him over the inferno.
He often mocked
the speed at which I walked
on December nights near the open sea.

After explaining over my shoulder,
like salt,
why the air felt so distinctly different
between us

he said no more about what he could not feel.

Together,
we find our way
a-part
of accepting
differences by degrees.



Artwork by Felix Nussbaum [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Monday, December 11, 2017

Warming up in the arena


The arena is oval
intentioanlly making
the full circle of time
longer
to come back around.

And again, there she was
propped on top 
of the highest hill
and I, as usual, 
stood down on
the slope to the sea.

We smelt smoke
simultaneously
lifted noses and sought out the source
at the same time
the lighting changed 
at once, dramatically.

The sun, abased,
hid his face,
and then ashes fell in fat white flakes
resembling a December snowfall.

The chimes rang in the festivities,
discarding suddenly
the carols for a cacaphony.
Twas an ode to Saint Ana, played
in her lowest latitiude
in lieu of Saint Nick
from the shrill Northmost pole.

And again,
it was watching the horses
that knocked the wind out of me.
I found myself suddenly breathless,
trampled and tethered to death-again
it was familiar, like a rerun of hooves
and clapping.

Under a change of directional
winds, the brittle atmosphere
carried things this way
on a warm winter day.

Amid the sea of grey, the longshot,
made a circle of gates
sent forth as smoke signals and 
red flags at the finish line.

One time we will learn
it is by noses alone
that races are won
or lost.








Photo credit by cogdogblog (https://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/2672008614/) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.


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