Hope

Annette, there was a line in one of Heather Cox Richardson’s recent emails, a quote from a journalist, who said something about the “cratering of democracy.” It has stuck with me. I actually wrote this in response to the Day 4 prompt of the Mindful Writing Challenge, only I didn’t use the line “Don’t go off somewhere else.” Then of course the extreme cold and death crept in. I’ll be curious what you think. Did I overwork it?

I recognize the chickadees in the basket of my being.
Five or six of them in the desiccated tree of my view.
They flutter in the branches, exchanging places in a busy
skirmish, chattering about the withered berries, how cold
is a kind of helplessness, a reckoning of temperature,
seeking solution to the breaking down. The aridity is nearly
criminal. My knuckles crack in a stark topography. I am afraid
to go outside. Indoors may not be any safer. I learn of an infant
buried with the wing of a bird. The mad-capped contrast
of black and white is only for birds. Our soft bodies are gray.
The gnarling of winter leaves a streak against the sky. These
messenger birds will collaborate with other birds to survive,
a key lesson when being is in discord with living, and choices
are grim. With the hope of us cratering, we save food for later.