Even God Yawned

Winter cast a spell on Lake Herman, and drugged  its poems. Under the hill, the blade of the breeze could not cut, and the sun, like the old lady's arm, was barely warm. No bird blew.  No ripples flew.  No thought rose from the soul of the comatose lake to seize the woman's emptiness, shaking it out like laundry to dry. The sky would be blue (it wished to be blue), but the effort was too great, and a thin haze won.  The grass was happy, but what does grass care for poetry? A few seeds, breaking out of their husks underground, regretted it, at once, and the afternoon hung like an old mackinaw on the farmer's hook, dusty with time at its plainest.  Even God yawned. Bees clutched their dream of summer, and slept, and the landscape waited.  It wore only the old woman, and her tidy dog. Eight white ducks dotted the I's on the lake, but the I's sailed alone without syntax to guide them. The canine, deep up his wall of question, heart on four legs, ran ahead scouting for event pausing often to listen for wolf or bear in the cellar of himself. There was nothing here for any poet.  Only the old woman and the dog,  walking, her soul deadened, and eating out of a stingy hand. Written January 14th, 2002 © on Jan 13 2002 03:25 PM PST, Carole Dudley   0 • 20 • 1