The Shoveler

After misfortune and a snow storm, I go out to shovel. Snow ten inches deep. Wet as a load of laundry spun out wrong, dripping, making a mess. The driveway is wide, walled on either side. I throw shovels of the stuff high as I can. Too much slides back down. I keep going. Snow keeps falling. Trees weep with it. A branch breaks, falls into the street. I am envious. An hour I work on that driveway. One square foot after another. No pushing this snow. Pick it up and throw, one after another and another. I clear down to the road where ten inches wait for plows that won’t come for hours. Maybe not today. There’s a point to shoveling, I tell myself. I say it again and again. I begin clearing the sidewalk. Slowly. My back is sore. I’ve taken off my coat. The gloves feel too warm. The shovel feels too heavy. The world is heavy. I clear down to the neighbor’s and keep going. Remember the story of a guy swimming through swimming pools back home. He never gets there. Or maybe he does, but there’s no home. I plot a winter version. A man shovels sidewalks down to the corner. He keeps going. Snow continues to fall. Morning becomes afternoon and evening. He thinks he’ll someday come to an end. But on the map, the cleared path leads due North. 

Fat Man In Darkness

Early morning a man sits at his kitchen table thinking how fat he is. He writes about it. Tapping the keys of his computer. The coffee cools by fractions of degrees. He wonders if losing weight is like that. Fractions of degrees leading to a cold cup. Chaos, he thinks. We tend toward chaos. He nods at the protein bar wrapper, a thing meant to satisfy. It’s empty. He sips coffee. Types some words. Rain has begun again. Thunder is coming nearer. If the sun rises, it won’t break through the dark clouds. The planet grows more chaotic. Out of his control. Tell me about it, he says to the cat. She meows not for the planet, coffee, or rain. She is hungry. Always hungry. Tell me about it, he says again. Thunder speaks instead. A flash of lightning and the power goes out. The overhead light. The man goes on typing. The battery will expire. The coffee is growing cold. He and the cat remain hungry, unsatisfied. He can’t remember eating the protein bar, the taste of hot coffee. Rain pounds hard. He thinks again how fat he is, how hungry, how out of control and chaotic his life feels. After a flash of lightning, the room becomes too dark to see. 

Howe Caverns, 1973

The darkness in Howe Caverns is absolute. Darker still in memory. 1973. Five years old. In a small boat. Floating down a narrow channel. Between rocks. Under rock. Far underground. A tall man guides us through darkness. Tells tales of the cavern. Tales of darkness. The boat bumps against a thin chain strung from rock wall to rock wall. The ride is over. People climb up onto dry cavern rock. I stare ahead past the chain. Water flows into darkness and disappears into sound. It falls. 1973. Five years old. The sound of a fall into absolute darkness. The end. I know the chain cannot hold. We are all slipping into darkness. The fall I still can’t imagine. The mouth of a monster. And I scream at that unknown. My father lifts me out of the boat. Tells me it’s alright, I’m okay. 1973. He was thirty-five years old. The darkness of memory is absolute. Dad unfastened the chain. Drifted into that darkness. I stand on the dry rock. The sound of falling water whispers through the darkness in a language I still can’t understand. I’ve stop screaming now to listen. 
 

February Fifth

It always snows on the fifth of February. Even when it doesn’t. After midnight, an inch, maybe two, falls and settles softly. Enough so the driveway must be cleared. In the early grey morning we go into the cold alone to put things back to right. We push the snow, lift and blow it aside. The clouds darken even before we are done and snow falls again. Wet and heavy now. A cold slush raining down from a sky so low it denies heaven. A strange bolt of winter lightning shoots through us and darkness comes to stay, like white snow piled at the curb turning a putrid black. The temperature falls hard. The ground freezes so deep it puts the lie to hell. Stones crack, heave, and rise up to litter a field. We stand beside an open hole, trying to remember feeling warm, and wondering how to put all this somehow back to right.