First Day of Snow 2

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. 

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...

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.

In the UK, contact: vcnvuk@gmail.com"  

A pdf version can be downloaded at

 Afghanistan: Hidden Voices from a Forgotten War

Bearing Witness to the Costs of War (Common Dreams article)

Costs of War site