Winter's Quiet Zone

We enter winter's quiet zone
with grey and feathered wisdom in our hands
a fine soft promise
that floats on the wind
an angel's tufted down
the brittle bones of the hereafter
assembled in a crone's scepter
cupped in dry fingers
with translucent glowing skin.
A breath will carry it away.
Attend and notice now.

Why Bother?

1.
Mountains of stories
Floor to ceiling thoughts
Food for worms
Rooms full of
tired legs and
tired eyes in
spider worlds
that weave through
corners and covers
with dew-dabbled blood-thirst

2.
Strings of bodies
Lives that line the streets
Riding escalators elevators incubators
Up and Down, Up and Down
Round and round
Swings and see-saws and tilt-a-whirls
Cotton candy
Spilled ice cream
Torn ticket stubs
Street-sweepers sorting confetti
after the parade

3.
sand and waves and drops and grains
galaxies and ants and seeds
scattered in well-tilled fields
of scorched earth
and parched corn
awaiting sobbing clouds

4.
Photographs
shoe boxes in thrift stores
children and families and
grandmothers' rings and things
albums worn thin at their velveteen edges
lacy water stains grin from leather-bound covers
fifty cents a piece or five for a dollar

5.
artifacts
flints and pottery and
mud-caked bodies clasping each other close
at the moment of annihilation
preservation
inhalation
excavation
exhumation
Pompeii goes boom.

6.
Three trees full of thieves
and a savior
under the thundercloud skies
ten thousand soldiers died
no one knows their names
holds their shrouds
leads their crowds
puffs of dust on long-gone
sandals
snuffed
out

7.
One-two-three
A-B-C
Every new mind steps up
with visions of sugar-plums
and one sour grape
waiting to burst its skin
and squirt its juice
into the mouths of babes

8.
So we ordered Chinese food
basked in electricity
shot up our veins
with a thousand insanities
and stood in Costco
selling ourselves
in bulk