We hibernate for the winter under blankets
and behind plastic covered storm windows
and dream of the desert. Sensations echo
familiar and faint smells have resonance:
cilantro, margarita salt, and cigar smoke,
the feel of a dry, cool air against our legs
in an East Valley February sunset. Snow –
we think to ourselves but never acknowledge –
snow will be the final death of us, buried
in this old farmhouse on a dilapidated back street,
sitting on a corner lot that once (briefly) was all the dream
we could muster. It was all the dream
we thought we wanted.
Now
our only hope is an early Spring.
And even that, I get the feeling,
will not come so easily, or as quickly
as we need. My innards tell me daily
they are withering from the absence of the sun.
My liver is saturated with woe and cheap beer,
trying to make the time pass more easily,
since it will not go fast. My aching feet
miss the flat expanse and cacophony of city streets.
We are too wise to believe in the pre-existence of paradise
but our souls are foolhardy enough to believe
we can still build it – if only
we can find a place
where the earth is neither scorched
nor saturated, neither buried
nor exposed. Where you and I
will (finally) be at peace
and will at last understand
our place in a world
that has, thus far,
declined all self-explanation
and leaves us bread crumb clues
and the odd comfort that comes
at the cost of divine apathy.