Poem

 Ravenous

The earth does what it can to heal itself

It has its own bag of tricks 

An assortment of medicinal potions

That used to always work.

Atmospheric ice crystals eventually

Glom together into thick fluttering flakes

That coalesce into warm cottony blankets

For a trembling world gone frail and meatless

Nothing but skin and bones down here,

Old boy, god help us all,

Stripped down towns, liens and defaulted loans

Rusted out stamping plants with vast 

Empty parking lots stubbled with tufts of grass.

Disappointed mothers, defeated fathers, 

Angry offspring who never visit or call

We’ve got high deductible health care plans

Car's in the shop again 

Bitten down fingernails

Alcohol and pain pills,

Pantries stacked with tin cans of tuna 

Mass death, mass delusion

Everyone on their very last nerve

A bankruptcy of decency

And so it snows.

Falling down

In layers covering

Bare trees shivering in the wind like ribs

Arching over the wan tepid heart of the world.

A white salve to the yellow brown scabs 

Pocking a land gone sallow and cachectic

With widely metastatic disease

Of an unknown origin.

But the snow is a transient balm

The snow never lasts 

When the spring comes

And the snowpack melts 

The ravenous world wakes,

Hungry enough to eat what’s left of itself

2/8/22