Hibernation

At this time of year, the gloom
strikes early in the afternoon. This morning,
before the clouds muscled in, to muzzle our days
and chill the living room, I saw a plane floating
through distant greys, immobile and soundless
in bands of pale light, all slanting,
all reaching up or down. To whom?

Everything tries to escape this
interminable Midwestern platitude,
to flare out of this dwindling albedo.
We sleep on wall-to-wall torpor, by the gas log,
drugged with dinner and placebos.
The color of firelight reflecting
from the edge of anything sharp enough
can break your frozen heart.
A glance is all it takes.

Our legs twitch and shudder,
paddling through dogmatic dreams
where we remember a life that mattered,
under a bigger, brighter moon,
when we were wolves, and suckled cities.

©2000 F.J. Bergmann

"Hibernation" appeared in Arbor Vitae Vol. 1, Issue 2, December 2006

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