February 11th: Options

Options

I divested myself of despair

and fear when I came here...

                                Contrition

does not exist, nor gnashing

of teeth.

                                                Notes from the Other Side

                                                Jane Kenyon

Not all day and not even most

not even a good part of it but

some some of the morning

and past noon I was moving

wind driven snow to make room

for more.  That was yesterday.

The wind gusted and when

my back was to it it was beautiful

and in a peril to persist

all hoar and fury.  When my heart

beat too fast I stood still but pushed

back against it pushing into me

lifting my small enough body

wondering what difference

does it make why and what?

Tomorrow it will be up to my hips

again.  It will settle like arthritis

a swell where my pelvis heats

with each swing and glow.  I’d made

only a one shoulder path to the door.  I

wanted to feel good about it

all.  Some difference.  The wind

blew in my tracks like I’d never been

there--and I thought: how so

like the ocean, this wind and snow.

I remember deep enough to see

and feel the frozen flats at home

where I once walked on in some

February and I fell in the frozen

clam holes, their slow thin twist

of air a brief pretty crystal I wanted

to be inside of.  I was

near a stream of stones, the salt

was thinner there but the water

just as cold.  I’d hoped to go

out into it all where I imagined

some myth in kelp held my purpose

in her fist.  It’s all because of wind

that I didn’t and here, walking back-

wards with a shovel full of snow

I knew if I fell right on top of

all I’d piled I’d be grateful I’d say

like a habit of memory the Act

of Contrition I’d have it on my wind

bled lips when I kiss my son under

his ear when I go in out of it all

and I’d leave a mark of it there

and I’d see briefly why I turned

around thirty two years ago and,

dripping wet, a cut across my dog

bit face, walked home alone to my mother’s

banging doors and ghosted rooms.

Purpose, the myth told me then

and tells me now, is boots you choose

to do the job is doing the job

in the boots you choose--she said

that when I shoved my double

socked foot into my son’s outgrown

shoes.  They’re two sizes too big

for me now.  If I tuck my pants into them

if I move through the wind and lift

my feet carefully, something ,

briefly, seems to fit.  I hear it in

the snow.  But it whispers.  It makes

my eyes ache and water.  I throw

the snow.  It blows back at me

and past me.  I throw it again

and again.  I don’t know any

better or any different.