Interminable

April 9 2019

Winter hangs on,

the grim sky

the bone-damp chill.

Rain turning to snow,

a glimpse of sun

snuffed-out by overcast.

Spring is the season of life,

but winter reminds us

of the life force;

how persistence is everything

and how hard it is to kill.

Each cell

in its death grip

hanging desperately on,

the brain, self-aware

racing frantically.

Try finishing a man

with a machete, he said

and you will understand.

So even this dismal season

will not relent,

as if cold begets cold

and the sun were receding.

As if a snowball earth

had lost its heat,

its molten core stilled

its surface locked in ice.

But none of this is true,

and as the planet turns

and the days lengthen

and the sun ascends the sky

another spring is certain.

It comes later every year.

Or perhaps this is age

and a trick of perception,

so that winter seems never-ending

and spring a cruel temptress

egging us on.

Thinking back, I think there were 3 things that subconsciously conspired in the creation of this poem.

Winter is dragging on well into April, and this strikes me as unusually late. But then I remember I thought this last year, as well, and it probably wasn't much different. For some reason, we seem hold to some concept of “normal” weather that is no such thing. And even as time goes faster as I get older, does age make it feel as if winters are longer, and summers shorter?

It is the 25 year anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, and I recently heard a radio interview with Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian general who was in charge of the undermanned and under-equipped UN peacekeeping forces there. Michael Enright quoted Dallaire from one of his books, where he said (I am paraphrasing): “It's very hard work to kill someone with a machete.” I felt a literal chill, hearing this. But it's true. Not just the bluntness of this horrible instrument, but the life force of any living thing, grimly clinging to life despite the gravest of injury. So in the poem, a personified winter also won't let go.

And finally, I just put down a beautifully written piece from the latest New Yorker by Anne Boyer (What Cancer Takes Away – April 8 2019; https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/15/what-cancer-takes-away). I think this is what led me to put an incidental seasonal observation into such stark terms of life and death.

Btw, there was a phase in earth's ancient geological history in which it was, indeed, a snowball planet. You can read about the Snowball Earth hypothesis here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_Earth .