A short-lived serenity creeps quietly
into her neighborhood as a blanket of
snow
deeply coats the broken sidewalks, the gutted
asphalt,
the debris, the strewn trash and
waste, the grass-
less lawns, the prostrate, still human
forms that will not
survive the frigid night.
The abandoned dwellings, made serene by the white snow,
seem less lonely. A single, hollowed
tree becomes abstract
art worthy of critical accolades. The
curling smoke from a
struggling fire of wood remnants
rescued from an abandoned
dumpster warm hands and feet
of men and women whose dimly
lit faces belie their
hopelessness, who surround the trash fire
covered by found coats
and pieces of old clothes surreptitiously
claimed from a
cascade of items falling from a now snow-
coated trash bag
caught on the edge of the local donation
bin; they
amuse themselves at the fire in whispered chatter,
making
their own temporal cheer via inner warmth courtesy of
communal
cheap whiskey.
The onlooking faithful believer, silhouetted in her window three
floors up, thanks
God for the peaceful scene. She sings
a hymn of gratitude for the respite. No
barking dogs, no anguished, smothered groans from the poor woman down
the hall whose soul-less drunken boyfriend most nights relentlessly curses
and punches his soul-less mate to relieve his tension; there are no screaming
kids,
no bongo man on the corner angrily beating his worn-out drums in
impassioned expressions of sounds attempting to mimic music, no hissing
cats, nor frightened bird breaks
the silence. She wraps her rough hands
around a hot mug of instant coffee,
steaming the window, determined to
imprint the scene in her mind as if her life depended on it. Because, for
a couple of hours, she dwells in a
clean, snow-painted paradise replete
with possibilities and prayed-for
promises.
For a couple of hours, it is an escape from nightmares
that offers solemn
moments of joy and hope. And,
for that
couple of hours, she is not afraid.
(c) jo 2024
