No tags yet.
Tonight, it is rain.
The grass still green, not even a slight dusting on the mountains. But this is the prose piece that is pinned to my wall, more a poem than not. I will argue for its lyricism any day. I read it every couple weeks, in the swelter of summer, the cooler hinge of fall. When people walk into my studio, they are often stunned to see the opening line written out in 6 shades of blue on a 1 ft sq page, "Every time it starts to snow, I would like to have sex."
People think I said it, even though the beloved essay sticks out of the left hand edge, full title in view. And I immediately tell them about the author. Occassionally, someone walks in (often a poet) and says, "Mary Ruefle, I love her." And then I know I will have to love that person as well.
Snow
Every time it starts to snow, I would like to have sex. No matter if it is snowing lightly and unseri- ously, or snowing very seriously, well on into the night, I would like to stop whatever manifestation of life I am engaged in and have sex, with the same person, who also sees the snow and heeds it, who might have to leave an office or meeting, or some ar- duous physical task, or, conceivably, leave off having sex with another person, and go in the snow to me, who is already, in the snow, beginning to have sex in my snow-mind. Someone for whom, like me, this is an ultimatum, the snow sign, an ultimatum of joy, though as an ultimatum beyond joy as well as sor- row. I would like to be in the classroom — for I am a teacher — and closing my book stand up, saying "It is snowing and I must go have sex, good-bye," and walk out of the room. And starting my car, in the beginning stages of snow, know that he is start- ing his car, with the flakes falling on its windshield, or, if he is at home, he is looking at the snow and knowing I will arrive, snowy, in ten or twenty or thirty minutes, and, if the snow has stopped off, we, as humans, can make a decision, but not while it is still snowing, and even half-snow would be some thing to be obeyed. I often wonder where the birds go in a snowstorm, for they disappear completely. I always think of them deep inside the bushes, and further along inside the trees and deep inside of the forests, on branches where no snow can reach, deep- ly recessed for the time of the snow, not oblivious to it, but intensely accepting their incapacity, and so enduring the snow in brave little inborn ways, with their feathered heads bowed down for warmth. Wings, the mark of a bird, are quite useless in snow. When I am inside having sex while it snows I want to be thinking about the birds too, and I want my love to love thinking about the birds as much as I do, for it is snowing and we are having sex under or on top of the blankets and the birds cannot be that far away, deep in the stillness and silence of the snow, their breasts still have color, their hearts are beating, they breathe in and out while it snows all around them, though thinking about the birds is not as fascinating as watching it snow on a cemetery, on graves and tombstones and the vaults of the dead, I love watching it snow on graves, how cold the snow is, even colder the stones, and the ground is the coldest of all, and the bones of the dead are in the ground, but the dead are not cold, snow or no snow, it means very little to them, nothing, it means nothing to them, but for us, watching it snow on the dead, watching the graveyard get covered in snow, it is very cold, the snow on top of the graves over the bones, it seems especially cold, and at the same time especially peaceful, it is like snow falling gently on sleepers, even if it falls in a hurry it seems gentle, because the sleepers are gentle, they are not anxious, they are sleeping through the snow and they will be sleeping beyond the snow, and although I will be having sex while it snows I want to remember the quiet, cold, gentle sleepers who cannot think of themselves as birds nestled in feathers, but who are themselves, in part, part of the snow, which is falling with such steadfast devotion to the ground all the anxiety in the world seems gone, the world seems deep in a bed as I am deep in a bed, lost in the arms of my lover, yes, when it snows like this I feel the whole world has joined me in isolation and silence.
Mary Ruefle
So satsfying. I'll define it tomorrow. Tonight, its past 1am, and I read a scary poem that landed well at the resident reading. Which is confusing. Til tomorrow.
xox Laurie
