Sunday, January 06, 2008

Childhood Snow

(Jan 06/08)

When I was smaller I got trapped in a snow-tunnel I built on our front lawn. I held my breath, wept and prayed that someone would find me. I managed to stick the end of my wooly mitten out the front of the tunnel, and wagging it round like a pennant prayed that someone, anyone, a passerby, a friend, a neighbor, a stranger would see my wee wooly mitten peeking through the ice and built-up snow. I stayed like that for what seemed like hours, my arms pressed in tight to my sides, the snow pushing in on the sway of my back, tears freezing and plucking at my cheeks. No one came, no one heard or came; no one. Finally a kid, a middle-school kid I knew from the neighborhood heard my bawling, the flag of my wee wooly mitten peeking through the snow, and stopped. I implored him to jump on top of the snow-tunnel, to break it into smithereens. He hesitated, and fiddling with the tassel on his toque said okay, sure okay. He stomped up and down on the snow-tunnel, his snow-boots crunching through snow and ice, and broke me free; the snow-tunnel collapse into igloo-size pieces of hard icy snow. I have never forgotten that day, and when I am feeling lost and confused, drawn away and into the snow-tunnel of my thoughts, I think of that kid and his rubbery snow-boots, and my wee wooly mitten waving and flagging like windsock.

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"Poetry is the short-circuiting of meaning between words, the impetuous regeneration of primordial myth". Bruno Schulz
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