Sun after snow we know means cold cold cold
Yet jackets come on and faces turn up and we say Beautiful day! to strangers
And strangers nod and agree and turn their faces up and dogs roll around in snow
I think I will take my grief down to the lake
Walk right out onto it, where yesterday a semi truck wandered and didn’t fall through
I will kick away the thin top layer of snow with the side of one Sorel
to reveal ebony ice and strings of sound under the ice and
pops of air under the strings of sound under the ice
layered in vertical layers above the living breathing bottom of the lake
God’s Etch-a-Sketch
I could step over a snowbank
Out onto the lake and say Beautiful day!
and lay myself flat onto the ice
Peer into multiple layers of life
underneath
I will! I will!
I will not
because now I see the snow bank is immense and slippery
and beyond it drifts more snow, thick knee deep
and near the place where a semi slipped onto the ice and didn’t fall through
a warning is posted Thin Ice
Thin Ice
It’s a lie
I know there is ice under the ice under the ice
and yet I shy back and bend away from the wind and wish
God would erase away this winter this thick drift this thin ice this
cold
Ice sky goes orange
sharpens the gleaming charcoal branches the white ice the wind
I turn toward home
disappointed and
cold
When you went away to your Beautiful Day were you hopeful?
Did you think it could get any better?
Were you disappointed? or humbled? or relieved?
When finally you arrived were you able to see beneath the layers
to the pop pop pops of air and the music and the life underneath?
When you got there, were you able
to lay your body flat on the solid white ice
and be free?