november twelve, twenty twenty four

my clothes this morning

smell of fresh comfort soup and kind friendship

simple medicines, but potent,

their efficacy amplified by these many weeks

of canned goods

conservation

and brokenness.

i have been isolating

both spatially and emotionally

shielding my spirit against the astonishing weight

of collective grief

counting privileges i never thought to name:

my house is whole.

my family is safe.

i have work,

and a car that takes me to it

over mountainous back roads mostly intact

though the landscapes around them

are changed.

i can be alone

to sit with this sorrow and anger and

process the guilt of surviving unscathed.

these detours and shortcuts are shelter

away from city streets crowded with signs

of crushed-hope campaigns

and the desperation of the permanently unhoused.

i am so.

fucking.

lucky.

to have this space to live and cry

and do my best to give

what can never, ever be enough.

my clothes this morning

smell of fresh comfort soup and kind friendship

as i walk this lanky dog

up a quiet country road,

shoulders piled high on both sides

with the weight of the world's

collapse.

it is november twelve

and the first dawning day cold enough

to warrant gloves made for warmth over work.

haphazard heaps of segmented tree trunks

hastily cleared by searches and rescues

lie curing in unseasonable air,

reminders until reclaimed by nature

or salvaged by humans for heat.

the lanky dog and i count the fallen.

the deer cross in the same place as last year

as though nothing they know

has changed.

perhaps this morning,

i can take my work gloves to forging a new trail forward

through the consuming destruction

and encompassing sadness.

perhaps this morning,

mourning will be all i can manage.

perhaps this morning,

the only work is words on the page

and kind greetings to strangers on the path

and as the day breaks again over these strange

familiar

broken

ancient mountains

for today

this will have to be enough.