Wright, Carolyne

English

SWOSU Digital Commons (Southwestern Oklahoma State University)

Volume 21Issue 1 Fall/Winter Article 1411-15-2001Celebration for the Cold SnapCarolyne WrightFollow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/westviewPart of the Fiction Commons, Nonfiction Commons, Photography Commons, and the PoetryCommonsThis Poetry is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals atSWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Westviewby an authorized administrator of SWOSU Digital Commons. For moreinformation, please contact phillip.fitzsimmons@swosu.edu.Recommended CitationWright, Carolyne (2001) "Celebration for the Cold Snap," Westview: Vol. 21 : Iss. 1 , Article 14.Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/westview/vol21/iss1/14Celebration for the Cold Snapby Carolyne WrightPre-dawn’s pilot lightsglow under the burnerslike the vigil lamps of runways. Not onebut has kept the faith all night.At six the window squares go blue, the first commuter trains clang by, full of people with bills to pay, important telephones to answer, custom-made ornaments for their office tree.I labor alone, draping tinsel on my foot-high pine, turning the world news down to a simmer. I parse words together, make lists of things I can do without: gifts and their impossible demands.Old lovers’ faces rise and set in my dreams. Their hands reach for me, toadstools that spring up in one rain.I glue their greeting cards to the windows, the year’s discarded printouts.I wrap presents to myself.Free of the Big World and its confusion of envies,I stand at the window, watch trains crawl past: everyone I’ve had to let go of, sleepwalkers lost in the heart’s subzero weather.©1981 by Carolyne Wright; from Poetry, December 1981W E S T V I E W20

Celebration for the Cold Snap

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Celebration for the Cold Snap

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