“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.”
T.S. Eliot, “Little Gidding” from Four Quartets
Fresh snow like a fresh page unwritten.
New words like new growth under snow.
Though some plants will be old ones
reinvigorated, as with some of my words –
new, but with old roots, ground-breaking blooms.
In the fog, the bare trees look
like they are lightly covered with snow.
This early morning walk in early April
is chilling cold reminding me that spring
is still more of a suggestion today.
I only have to travel a few hours north of home to still find the early morning hours between midnight and sunrise to be more like winter than spring despite what the calendar tells me.
This morning, further north, but still spring,
there were ice crystals on the rocks.
It doesn’t take much change to make
things look different from the recent past.
The future – one or two seasons away?
I walk across the snow and sand
to the lifeguard stand and climb up.
It’s a place I certainly never belonged
in my youth. Never a strong swimmer,
never an athletic body, no secret desire
to save lives. Well, maybe to save
a few girls I knew who then
would be indebted to me, in love
with their hero. I would rescue them
from the riptides of their undeserving boyfriends.
Writing the Day 