A Different Mild January

So already, it's yet another mild January day in the Boston area, and it's just beyond a month since my father died. As everyone tells me, there's no way to prepare for the death of a loved one. I also hear that mourning is highly individual. 

 

I've been sad, functional, and incredulous over these last weeks. And while I believe I generally express myself better in prose than in poetry, my feelings recently have been expressing themselves to me in poem form. So I share here the poem that's been taking shape, not because it's a "good poem," but because it's an honest one. It's called "January 10." 

 

A year ago

On such a faux spring day,

I would have phoned my father,

Who would have been weighing

A winter walk,

Having already noted 

The fine blue sky and mild air 

Beyond his bedroom window.

We’d have discussed

What jacket he might wear

To seize the unseasonable day.

 

I would have told him

What I’d seen on my walk--

Some foursomes teeing off

Beside the hilltop clubhouse

Unshaded by the leafless trees,

Others putting on greens too green

For days when darkness falls by five.

 

But not this year.

While winter’s mildness

Means my mind and feet 

Can wander the usual routes 

With their own blank knowing,

I crave a snowfall

That stills and silences the world,

Covers me in dreamless sleep

Until I wake ready for Earth 

To resume her rush to rebirth.