219. STAB ME WITH 100 CLOUDS

STAB ME WITH
100 CLOUDS
The refinement of the horizon was an unaccustomed thing -
the orange ball of the lifted Sun, slowly coming up from
somewhere, was startling in its daily and calm intensity.
Something over and over again, recurring - the rising
of consciousness and mind. The bare Earth, in its repose,
accepted what came its way. On the left, I saw six deer
slowly grazing, their heads down into the snowy gruff
of last season's corn-stubble. A choppy reminder of
what was - now stabbing up through a few inches of snow.
Everything was covered; just as everything was exposed.
-
The small waters of the local canal, chocked too with ice,
made slow movement around obstacles and over things -
the concrete spillway, the floodgate and its turnwheel and gear,
the bargemaster's cabin, now rotted and crumbling back
to the land. Layers of time, like the skin of an oversized
onion in the hand of an idle God, slowly seemed to roll
themselves back. The sun kept a'rising - higher atop
the field - as I watched its vivid orange turn to a
yellowy white.