Power Outage
Power Outage
The darkness feels thicker than regular darkness.
I lift one arm to test it, expecting to need
a swimming stroke,
only when I type that, it comes out as “warm harm”
instead of “one arm,”
maybe because I am worrying about a candle that burns down in the kitchen,
and the kettle that I have also left to heat
on the hand-ignited gas
stove.
The unattended candle, kettle,
feel foolish,
so I imagine wrapping my blanket
about my shoulders and
stepping down the treacherous-in-the-darkness stairs
to check on it all,
yet still I sit, blanket
over my legs, listening
to the hum of the kettle, the taps
of my typing, the farther silence that follows a dog’s bark
down a nearby road, and also the
slight tinnitus of which I am suddenly conscious,
an internal chorus of cicadas.
I look up to the room, amazed somehow
that all its physical, unelectrified contents, are exactly
as they should be, even more so—
the window panes, the chair, the pictures—
me beneath the blanket, warm, unharmed,
and, I am conscious now, not only of the tinnitus,
but of the great blessings that I have
been given, so unearned.
I am almost afraid to think of them,
as if some spirit of the universe
might say,hey!— and correct the
imbalance.
A lantern sits to my side, blowing glitter
about its glass, and also about
a stiff little cardinal that sits
on a twisted wire tree.
White-stuccoed gimcrackery that somehow manages
an immense beauty
simply in the way
that it circulates light.
The walls dance with it.
***************************
Another poem for April. Written early this morning. (Nothing burned down.)
Have a good night.
Explore posts in the same categories: UncategorizedTags: #napowrimo, April Poetry Month, Karin Gustafson poetry
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