First Snow

The ground is warmer than the air, so this sleet snow shit melts when it hits earth. Still, it announces a paradigm shift. The leaves are mostly gone, soul and a witness, oh my lord. Winter again, cold wind and snow. Get on your knees and pray. Hard freeze overnight and a dusting this morning. I spend a couple of hours cleaning the cookstove, the various pipes and chases, then, finally, start a fire. The house is so cold it takes hours to heat back up. I park myself in front of the stove on my Selma, Alabama, rocking chair, reading a new Gunter Grass memoir. Not as good as his big sprawling novels (I liked "The Flounder" best), then a pile of literary criticism off-prints. Lunch is a monster toasted two-cheese sandwich with thick slices of onion, drinking very hot chicken broth. Then reading poetry by George Oppen, Skip Fox, Louis Zukofsky, then editing myself. When the oven got quite hot (450 degrees) I made a batch of biscuits and pretty much ate them all. Suit up and go for a small walk, down the logging road, more now just a trail winding through young poplars. A tear-inducing wind. It's difficult to examine color closely, through a magnifying glass, when you're crying. In the lee of a rock outcrop, where, years ago, I placed a stump seat, I roll a smoke and consider the seasonal openness across the hollows. Once again, I can see the horizon. On the way back to house, I find a tiny skull, a rodent of some sort, and I stand there, in the cold wind, turning it over in my hands (which are red, and gloveless) thinking about life and death. Nothing profound, just that they both happened; I have new puppies under the house and dying parents. When I get home I have to mute NPR and kill the breaker for the fridge, finally take off Linda's knit watch-cap, which I've worn since early this morning, and scratch my head. Scratching is such secret fun, best done alone, with no hidden camera. Never underestimate your audience.