It’s been another nasty day, with no sunshine. The rain started early, then turned to sleet and then wet white feathers of snow that whispered against my umbrella and turned immediately to slush under my feet when I walked to the supermarket to get milk.
Despite a brief attempt at settling, the snow was soon superseded by more rain, and now it’s reduced to a mizzling dampness, which is expected to fade to mist or fog later on.
But “God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December”, and digital cameras so we can post pictures of summer fields in the depths of winter.
And since we’re thinking of green fields and sunshine, let’s have a prose poem that celebrates just that. The opening is taken from “The Emergence of Memory, 1” by Laynie Browne.
Forever Day
The cloud is green; his hand is light. He lifts his hand to a green cloud and sunlight embraces his hand and he spreads his fingers.
Sunlight embraces the spread of his fingers, entwines and enlightens his hand and his fingers; sunlight embraces his hands and his arms, envelops his body, his legs and his feet as he stands firm on the cloud-green grass.
He stands firm in the sun’s embrace and pulls down light from a green cloud. The sunlight spreads to embrace the spread of the grass; the grass is sunlit and the cloud-green grass turns yellow as sunlight.
The clouds fold back, and the sky and the air and the grass are sunlight; he stands firm, embraced in sunlight; he stands on sunlight.
He stands on sunlight, but the grass is green under his shadow and under the shadow of the receding clouds.
I have some notes on a piece of paper on my desk describing prose poetry as “Janus-faced”, “a thing between”, straddling two camps, “like living between two cultures.”
Another jotting simply says, “Prose poetry as jazz: riffing on a theme.”
And a final note says, “timing is vital.”
Now is not the time for sunshine, but poetry, photography and music can all help to brighten the dark nights of winter.
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