Optimism in the face of the blizzard

I took this from my window at 8AM today.  It is now 1PM, and much more snow has fallen.   The weather people predict two to three feet, and with the wind, the drifts are already that high.

I am by nature an optimistic person, assuming good will of everyone to the point of foolishness and gullibility.  I have lived with some suspicious, negative women ( yes, even in the convent they dwell!) and they have made me even more determined to be optimistic.

Right now we are having a crisis between the faculty and administration at my university which has spilled out in leaked emails to the national media, and some of my friends are sending me outraged emails and phone calls.  I think they’ve gone off the deep end in emotional reactions; I think everything will turn out alright in the end.  But as I look out the window at the blizzard provided by nature, I can’t help feeling inundated by the blizzard of rage and blame.  I’m only a bystander in this, but I feel the raging snowstorm.

It’s hard for me to be my optimistic self this afternoon.

So here’s a poem I wrote a long time ago, during the blizzard of 1979:

 

Blizzard

 

The deaf snow speaks

in sign

like a prophet.

His fingers remark the landscape

swiftly, stolidly.

They say

This time I am serious.

He cups his thick hand

on the birdsnest,

he levels the driveways,

leans on the trees,

pulls the sky down

to the earth –

nebulae swirl

by the second story windows.

This time I am serious.

This time

you will hear me.

 
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