Losing Wild

February provides the glassy hope of returning light. In the same way a single pinpoint of starlight reaches the eye, a chink in the granite corridor of winter allows for some kind of opening. A micro bloom. Clemency, perhaps. This exhalation moves the discussion another way.

Winter tamps down whatever wildness remains at the roots of my hair. This is probably for the betterment of those who choose to eat supper and tend fire and dance with me. Yet a new margin discolors vast miles of white on white on white. I get close enough to the crevice to run my tongue along its edges. Instead of sharp angles left behind by a chiseling or blunt force, the opening is rounded and smooth as if softened over time by moving water. Perhaps my heat will coax winter's relaxation. Maybe the locked creek will wake itself to sprinkle holy water upon feathered heartbeats at rest on high.

now
a little light

enough
to confess

truth

We let go of each other, I guess. Love becomes the Impersonal Everyone it always is. How unfair it is to heat and stamp and shape this existence into anything else. We would have ended up here with or without a kiss, though. Ya know? I watch our verse move like the tide – closer – away – shy – hungry – arrive.

Oak branches solder a flannel sky. Snow, ice, rain, repeat. As I load wood into the woodbox, the rough bark scraps the blistered skin between my fingers. Greenhouse work takes a toll but its a price I don't mind paying for once. Dirt floats in the air and it's warm enough to sweat and to wear shorts. The work takes all of me but having a purpose returns the favor. Back home, remnant downfall from the last ice storm is fed to the fireplace keeping the house just warm enough. After being in the greenhouse all day, every thing feels much colder, even after a hot shower. And finally, falling asleep, wasted from the day, suddenly I am deeply assessing all this work that we do – all this life that lives us – and I am asking: where is the unmanageable wild?