justwrite 9 january

If the snow comes the night falls and I should drink more milk there’s a crackling of bones that calcium might solve sold in tablets from the apteka the mysterious counters and shelves the glass trap where health is locked up and bought and sold but what I want to talk about is the phrase I lost yesterday the walk home from the bus after getting off the bus one and another another landing in my native town of the moment juggling such bags this one clothes and this one jars and this one only apples and as the shifting straps as my jeans collapse from tired travel and belt denial I am ready to set down and switch again and suddenly past the stretch where the dark shadows and their adolescent laughter gather near the ping-pong table wrapped up for the night around into the mud beyond the light an accordion sounds and brings with it a song of embroidered harmony layers of black and red and warm and light stitched into an inconvenient night brightening the way setting into play the holiday spirit so easy to hear it in their voices their laughter spilling over the balcony past all the waiting vegetables the buckets of apples and sacks of potatoes ready for their turn this golden swimming wave out to save the evening from cold damp disinterest washes through me over the hill and through the mud coming up on the curve where the mama dog waits and the kids all gone but here there’s a sudden something a boom in tune with a different holiday angle and the stranglehold of sound takes all listeners by surprise and turns into a car alarm out in the front by the courtyard and it’s hard to find two more striking sounds to bookend the scene accordion and a car alarm charming and confusing buying what we’re losing by all this watching and waiting while we ought to be creating these scenes don’t make themselves and neither santa nor his elves can deliver what we’re missing kissing traditions goodbye without trying the pie without taking the cake we are making mistakes when we lose the color when we buy the package when we punch our cards but accordions and car alarms can jar our senses can lower our defenses and bring us back to now and how it ought to could have been next