The Edge of a Small Field

The storm has passed in time for the actual snowstorm coming our way, toward this small corner of the world. The unicorn meat eating cats frantically go out and in, in and out; as if they know they will soon be all indoors. Ratty is awake with me now, content for once. He can howl as loud as Kerouac ever could.

I wish I felt new, after this latest storm, but I do feel clear, like the storm clouds leaving yesterday before the sun, to reveal a blue that I had forgotten. I love rain and snow. It's a real grief I can't hear the rain in my new apartment. But grinding gray skies, day after day, is too much. The only remedy yesterday, was some dark pink tulips, and yellow daffodils.

Gray skies like that remind me of ancient gods making weapons. The gold fields and the razor sharp shadows fill the fields with ominous signs. The trees are a refuge, as always, but now the underbrush is cold. In the fall, the underbrush is newly brown, and drips of moisture onto the dark, crisp leaves below. The naked shadows of the trees is new and their silhouettes are beautiful holding the stars in their hair. But now, I am desperate for the daffodils coming up eagerly, and the hyacinth, and all the spring flowers that herald the change.

There is no green mist. The green mist that hovers over the trees before the blossoms come out. How do people who live in large cities endure? It is no wonder to me that Detroit is falling, like some medieval city, to a neighboring king. I have seen pictures, and there is no green thing there that I can see. The city has ground down it's citizens with it's gray temperament, and now they have nothing to give it in relief.

I have been to the green places in Washington, D.C., but the gray winter has taken hold there. Freezing the hearts of a political party, so that they deny the old their food, and the young their caregivers. I, in my anger, roll the legends of the fall of Rome around in my hands. It is not as if the history of Rome is obscure in any way.

The Congress has forgot the end of the story...the bread and circuses, now with not even bread to appease the populi. They only remember the arrogance of the order that set the  last legion, onward to march as long as one man could move forward, to the ends of the earth. Which small village saw the last man lay the banner down? In what place had he eaten when his life overcame duty, and the pride of Rome?

I know Sequestering will affect me in real ways, the longer it goes. I have a food bank now, of which I am not ashamed. Desperate times call for desperate measures, as they say, and Congress has forgotten that, too. So I will have something to eat.

But after the storm of the last week, the prospect of facing lack of mental health care is truly frightening. Daily, psychologists already labor with very little compensation...and that's about to be cut, which is already down to the bone. My psychologist is a specialist, in Borderline Personality disorder, and should be coaching two people, at maximum. He is currently coaching fifteen, all women.

And while Spring in no way affects these burdens we all share, still it is something: to stand on the edge of a field on the edge of winter, and watch the small life come out to feed.