Beginning of Something

Here it is 18 degrees. It snowed all day and night.
So this morning, when I awoke, it was still dark. The world glowed with a radiance that only a new snow can give. A crystalline luminescence, a dream.
I did not sleep, but listened to the snow falling, and all the emptiness. Ashes falling to earth and landing with a hiss. I could feel them on my naked flesh, star ashes, cold and searing, even under my comforter I could not get warm. I shivered and sweat and worried in the glittering light.


Night sweats.


So here I am, sitting here, looking out the window, drinking coffee, and this is what I know.
It is 18 degrees.
It snowed last night, all day yeserday.
The cedars are bent and sagging.
Everything has shrunk.
The powerlines have drooped, the birch tree snapped.
The sun is pouring in, blinding me.
I am staring out at all of this brightness, this resplendence, and I can't bear my own breath, can't bear that gust of snow sworling just outside the window pane, that squirrel gnawing at the plastic lawn chair. I cannot feel my cold feet.
I have missed three weeks of work. I yanked the phone cord from the wall. The sink is stacked with pans of Beefaroni.
I shivered all night.
Why didn't I get another blanket?
Why didn't I sleep beside the radiator?
I could not move.


These are the facts. The cold hard facts.
I am so tired of the facts.