The
Country of Winter
April 12 2013
Here, in the country of winter
the borders are closed.
On the wrong side of the wall
in flood-lit shadow
things are black
or white,
like an old TV
getting mostly static.
Or shades of grey,
a Kafkaesque maze
in soft lead pencil
in the hands of faceless clerks.
And the people pale;
in padded jackets, uniformly drab,
too cheap
to keep us warm.
We walk quickly,
avoiding strangers' eyes
guarding our private lives;
the shared misery
and mutual suspicion
that are the usual condition
in a cold war.
But there have been rumours heard
of a free world
somewhere south,
where flowers are blooming, people making love
in private gardens
under lingering sun.
Of soldiers
with roses
in the barrels of guns.
Our time will come
or so we've been told,
the state of siege lifted
winter overthrown.
Revolution
on the first warm day.
When walls of snow soften
water pouring-off,
and the air is sweet
pungent with spring.
When intransigent night
is slowly pushed back,
we stop in the street
smiling, clasping hands.
Winter oppresses us,
and we no longer believe
in its pristine beauty.
We are like that brave and desperate man
standing up to the tank
in Tienanmen;
so sure of spring
and done with waiting.
This poem was written in what feels like endless winter. It is almost the middle of April, and today I am snow-stayed for the second time in the span of a week. For me, this is a guilty pleasure. (As long as the power stays on, that is!) Because I love seclusion. And this is the perfect excuse to spend all day reading and writing, which I find delightful. But even so, I'm starting to share in the universal impatience for spring.
The cold war is a natural metaphor, since it begins to feel as if we're behind an Iron Curtain, our glorious leaders promising us some future utopia, while subversive rumours leak in -- over TV and shortwave and smuggled books -- of a mythical free world, on the other side of the wall. In this case, that utopia is spring -- and equally hard to believe!
I can't help but picture Soviet proletariat man in black and white; see him as ground down, sullen and suspicious. After this long, winter starts to turn us into that stereotype (as unfair and simplistic as it may be). The Berlin Wall is like the line betweenKansas
and Oz: monotone on one side; then suddenly full cinematic colour.
In another totalitarian state, that brave man who stood up to the tank in that iconic picture of Tienanmen square was the model of stoic impatience: so sick of oppression that he would risk his life, but sure enough of eventual success he was sure he wouldn't be wasting it. This is too powerful an image to let go, even at the risk of debasing his sacrifice with our own puny impatience (which I hope I haven't done).
The first really warm day of spring really is like a revolution, a sudden dramatic softening: the unaccustomed heat, in shirt sleeves and sneakers; the speed with which everything melts; the pungent smell of decomposing soil, loamy earth.
Here, in the country of winter
the borders are closed.
On the wrong side of the wall
in flood-lit shadow
things are black
or white,
like an old TV
getting mostly static.
Or shades of grey,
a Kafkaesque maze
in soft lead pencil
in the hands of faceless clerks.
And the people pale;
in padded jackets, uniformly drab,
too cheap
to keep us warm.
We walk quickly,
avoiding strangers' eyes
guarding our private lives;
the shared misery
and mutual suspicion
that are the usual condition
in a cold war.
But there have been rumours heard
of a free world
somewhere south,
where flowers are blooming, people making love
in private gardens
under lingering sun.
Of soldiers
with roses
in the barrels of guns.
Our time will come
or so we've been told,
the state of siege lifted
winter overthrown.
Revolution
on the first warm day.
When walls of snow soften
water pouring-off,
and the air is sweet
pungent with spring.
When intransigent night
is slowly pushed back,
we stop in the street
smiling, clasping hands.
Winter oppresses us,
and we no longer believe
in its pristine beauty.
We are like that brave and desperate man
standing up to the tank
in Tienanmen;
so sure of spring
and done with waiting.
This poem was written in what feels like endless winter. It is almost the middle of April, and today I am snow-stayed for the second time in the span of a week. For me, this is a guilty pleasure. (As long as the power stays on, that is!) Because I love seclusion. And this is the perfect excuse to spend all day reading and writing, which I find delightful. But even so, I'm starting to share in the universal impatience for spring.
The cold war is a natural metaphor, since it begins to feel as if we're behind an Iron Curtain, our glorious leaders promising us some future utopia, while subversive rumours leak in -- over TV and shortwave and smuggled books -- of a mythical free world, on the other side of the wall. In this case, that utopia is spring -- and equally hard to believe!
I can't help but picture Soviet proletariat man in black and white; see him as ground down, sullen and suspicious. After this long, winter starts to turn us into that stereotype (as unfair and simplistic as it may be). The Berlin Wall is like the line between
In another totalitarian state, that brave man who stood up to the tank in that iconic picture of Tienanmen square was the model of stoic impatience: so sick of oppression that he would risk his life, but sure enough of eventual success he was sure he wouldn't be wasting it. This is too powerful an image to let go, even at the risk of debasing his sacrifice with our own puny impatience (which I hope I haven't done).
The first really warm day of spring really is like a revolution, a sudden dramatic softening: the unaccustomed heat, in shirt sleeves and sneakers; the speed with which everything melts; the pungent smell of decomposing soil, loamy earth.
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