As a Light Snow Keeps Falling, and: Solitude

It is true that nothing seems to change. And that everything seems to change. That this is not a paradox is also true. The heart wants what it wants. The heart wants what it wants. The man in the pinstriped suit taps his half-boiled egg Spooning it clean with a crust.

It is true that certain people will not like us. And that certain people always will. That this is not an axiom is also true. Chemistry is what makes the world spin. Chemistry is what spins us to a stop. The man in the pinstriped suit butters his toast Asking for more marmalade to spread.

It is true that hope and time are wedded. And that hope and time live separate lives. That this is not a parsing of words is also true. The earth will bury the perfect life. The earth will seed our blooming. The man in the pinstriped suit holds his Sunday travel section Returning it to the chair unread.

It is true that passing observations are the observer’s. And that passing observations are public domain. That this is not an irony is also true. Experience will paint the water. Experience will water the paint. The man in the pinstriped suit signs his room number Crossing quietly across the quiet.

Solitude

Overwhelmed by his incompetence and all that jazz, he sat in a rental car and locked in

on the fog pluming valley and hill, hoping it might lift his spirits before the Gascogne sun

would come beating down. Along the road bounced a boy––baguette under arm––growing

small, expanding the horizon. Women followed with butter and basil, crème fraîche and lavender,

working canes and problem hips, standing up for time. If that, too, was cliché, it was all right

with him. This one cemetery town was too far from death for the tired image to retire,

for the kitchen table not to spread the years with fresh crumbs; in an attic somewhere close

a broken scale was weighing change and first editions. And so when the rainstorm struck,

keeping him parked where he was, a kind of relief washed over him––nature could be the decision-

maker now. It was as if he could wait, once again, for the voice calling Supper! Supper! As if

through the windshield he could see his father pulling into the drive. That solitude should take

this form––a torrential stream one side, the fog of his breath the other––helped shape a view:

he was a stranger in a strange land, the familiar and the familial his reckoning. Content he was

to open the door of the car and step into the fury of the downpour, to let the skies have their way

with him, to let himself finally be the writer who steps out of the third person and confesses.