Survival Economy

I figure that if I have two cords of wood in the shed, and another two cords ready to go in there, that I'm pretty well set. Even a brutal winter like this, I've only burned maybe three cords, and one of those, I've picked up as pre-cuts on the side of the road. Blowing snow, it's awful outside, I have to duck back inside and pee in one of those large coffee containers. Temperatures dropped forty degrees in four hours. A good test of the systems. My digital clock tells me that the power has been back on for four hours but I don't have a clue what time it is. For that matter, I'm not sure what day it is. When the power went off I just wrapped up in a blanket on the sofa and went to sleep. When I woke up later, to the sound of the refrigerator and the radio, I lit the fire I had laid earlier. The house was very cold, but I drew up a chair close to the stove, and read an article on early migrations of Paleolithic cultures, made a cup of tea and a piece of toast, my hip hurts less when I think of other things. Clovis points correspond to European work of the same period. Draw whatever conclusions. I can't do it anymore, but I used to hang by my feet and focus lights precisely; now I have trouble standing on a stool to get a book off one of the top shelves. My sense of balance is not what it used to be. An inch of new snow, the transparent variety that indicates it melted and refroze in falling. Beautiful in the sunlight, but fast disappearing. My friend Anthony, the king of the wood-fired kiln, was in touch, and might make it out to the ridge this afternoon. Hike in for a few hours of conversation. I'm sure I'll remember how to talk, it's one of the things I used to be considered very good at, but now I go for days without speaking to another person. I mumble to myself, and read back over a line to find the continuity, but I don't have a conversation. Anthony and I pick right back up where we had left off, months ago. Common ground. I offered to give him an acre of land, and access to the woodlot, so he could build an Anagama kiln; I wouldn't mind helping with that. After he leaves, I finally pull on some boots and walk over to the top of the driveway. It's solid, and I should be able to haul a load of my books from the museum on Saturday. Just what I need is two more boxes of books, but it's not to be helped. Shovel out the past, as Frost said, it is a bucket of ashes, no wait, it wasn't Frost, it was Sandburg, Four Playthings, when I first read that poem, I remember never having been moved so much by language. That the outside could affect me so strongly, where I lived, deep within myself.