There was snow last Thursday. There was snow yesterday. Wind whips the snow crystals off the roof, scatters the juncoes at the birdseed out front. Four magpies in the trees above the compost bin prepare for the apocalypse. Or they're just gossiping. Impeachment hearings on the screen. The face of Trump omnipresent (for years) so that it makes me begin to believe - unconsciously - that he is omniscient.
But when I look away from that circus (quite often), there's the wind tearing snow crystals off the roof, the crystals breaking the intermittent sunlight into every color across the spectrum.
What is going on outside the realm of Trump's omnipresence? There are wars the US is engaged in. Forever wars: Yemen, Libya, Sudan, Iraq, Syria, and one that has been going on since the fall of 2001 - 18 years - the longest war in US history, Afghanistan.
What is going on outside the realm of Trump's omnipresence? There are wars the US is engaged in. Forever wars: Yemen, Libya, Sudan, Iraq, Syria, and one that has been going on since the fall of 2001 - 18 years - the longest war in US history, Afghanistan.
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| Photo by Michaela Kahn |
I wrote the poem below after our first snow two years ago, and posted an earlier version on that occasion - juxtaposing the silence of the snow and the silence in the media on the wars, so many wars, the endless wars.
Nothing has changed...
Nothing has changed...
After the First Snow
1.
A
perfect sphere
of
snow sits atop
the
last standing post
of a
fallen fence.
The
wars go on. And
on.
But there's
no
more news. A snow-
covered
pear branch
looks
like a deer
femur.
We go
to
work, come home,
eat
dinner, talk.
Magpie
claw-prints
in
snow-dust
across
gutter ice. I
remark
how
the
moon and the snow
make
the shadows –
of
trees, stones, parked
cars,
telephone poles –
more
real than
the
things
themselves.
2.
Bright
moon, clear
sky,
blue snow.
Something
moves
beyond
the bedroom window.
I
turn, want it
to
be a face,
a
stranger's face, asking
sacrifice
for all
the
dead –
a
finger bone, an eye,
the
ecstatic part of me
that
lives inside
a
cholla thorn,
lit
orange
by
the setting sun –
but
there is
nothing
there,
never
anything
there.
*************
From Voices
for Creative Non-Violence:
A new publication by Maya
Evans and Voices for Creative Non-Violence UK
"Stories and testimonies collected from some VCNV visits to Afghanistan, giving a voice to women and young people, the very voices recent peace negotiations have excluded. The booklet includes essays on women, mining, deportation, the peace process, Britain and the Great Game, the case for US reparations, and moreover, the voices of ordinary Afghans.
In the US, copies can be obtained for a donation to Voices for Creative Nonviolence ($10 suggested to cover costs and shipping) mailed to Voices for Creative Nonviolence, 1249 W Argyle Street #2, Chicago, Il. 60640.
"Stories and testimonies collected from some VCNV visits to Afghanistan, giving a voice to women and young people, the very voices recent peace negotiations have excluded. The booklet includes essays on women, mining, deportation, the peace process, Britain and the Great Game, the case for US reparations, and moreover, the voices of ordinary Afghans.
In the US, copies can be obtained for a donation to Voices for Creative Nonviolence ($10 suggested to cover costs and shipping) mailed to Voices for Creative Nonviolence, 1249 W Argyle Street #2, Chicago, Il. 60640.
A pdf version can be downloaded
at
