We, the Beneficiaries

Heavy white hushes the hum of living. Footfalls sink silently into deep and breath becomes vapor. The heavens, a mirror, and my reflection lost in falling bits of pallid sky. The earth has been given a new robe, and we--the beneficiaries.

Yesterday, it all worked against me.

Yesterday, still is in my mind. There is the snow-buried car. The slow-moving traffic. The hour it takes to drive twenty-five miles to and from work. The patients with their faces pressed against the glass. The new one who broke my heart. Yes, she has the voice of an angel. And the snow keeps falling, falling.

Looks like you’re staying here with us tonight.

The patients joke and tease. We laugh and watch accumulation grow deep from within the warm walls of the hospital. I leave a little early, to the envy of the others. Ah, the joys of being a consultant with no benefits. I help a dear lady dig her car out in the lot and she tells me that she’s heard the interstate is impassable around Cross Lanes.

I make my way west and head to the boulevard. I want to escape the big trucks and ruts of slushy snow that keep pulling me into their clutches.  I drive along the river. That glassy womb holds flows of ice and small sternwheelers are docked at her edge. I imagine the moon in her belly, giving this iridescent light, pulling the sky into her depths.

Yesterday brought this today. Today, there is quiet. Peace.

I have promised the boys we will go sledding some time today. I see the light of Christmas shine on their sleepy faces. This coming week we will give Penny to her new home and I try not to cry when I think about it. I watch the diamonds that are hidden in the snow. The trees are heavy-laden and wear lace shawls. There is no sound but a quiet dripping.

Heavy white hushes the sound of the living. But there is this—this whisper of creation. The earth has been given a new robe and we, the beneficiaries.