On a bright Sunday morning, the winter that never came loosens its grip on the grass and vines that never really went away.
The older generation is gone, and all that's left are tiny paper bathroom cups and candy apple vials of Mercurochrome. I can't bring myself to throw the stuff away.
And so many photographs of vacations and Christmas Eves and new cars.
They were children in the Depression, and when they were 40 the earth was 40 along with them, squashing out its cigarettes and arranging colored glasses of Jello in the refrigerator to set. The stars clinked in the night sky like drunken ice cubes. A wall-to-wall carpet of sprawling elementary schools and jazzy churches rolled out on top of the old farms. As if there had been no time before, everything was modern.
Now snow exists only in jpegs of Colorado, or David Guterson novels. Our correctness is our religion—a whole-grain enlightenment. Children are the new adults, fascinating and authoritative, thriving in the soil of our confused emptiness.
Our Januarys cannot even freeze the ground. We cannot make a memory.
1 comment:
Trying this a second time, and realizing how my comments and the blog reflect my first attempt.
The part not reflected was how much I liked the images, the drunken ice cubes, the wall to wall and the squashing out of ciggies. The part that relates is my reaction to the soil of confused emptiness, the inability to freeze the ground or make a memory because I said that, unlike your comment to me about wrist slashing, it was more a well written piece about ennui, not depression (although the former can descend into the latter sometimes). Now let's see if the damn comment takes or if I feel discontent (but not bored, so I guess it ain't ennui, is it?)
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