The Gathering Storm

I have been laying in provisions. It's an odd assortment, some tangible and some not, and the pile increases as small offerings arrive in the mail from far-away friends who know instinctively what is lacking. Cards and funny signs and Emily Dickenson are added to the pile of potato chips and dark chocolate and red wine. They are necessary. I place them next to the recent memories of good visits that are waiting to be wrapped around me when I cannot get warm. Poems come through the ether, seeking me out and the rose bush is collapsing beneath the weight of its blooms.

Just me and the otters, I held them so close
I felt the bump of ghosts as I held them.
There is no poem that will bring back the dead
There is no poem that I could ever say that will
Arise the dead in their slumber, their faces gone
There is no poem or song I could sing to you
That would make me seem more beautiful
If there were such songs I would sing them
O they would hear me singing from here until dawn

- From Dorothea Lasky's Me and the Otters