Winter Purple

Winter Purple

By William Doreski

Black ice curses asphalt roads

this morning, the moon a white hole

funneling away our dream lives.

Few sharp edges in nature yet

we bleed from tiny scratches

inflicted by our wandering minds.

The challenge of snow-freighted trees

remains critical. One orange spark

of sun won’t be bright enough

to disburden the nervous landscape.

December’s always the wrong month,

with superstitions running wild

to obviate a year’s worth

of whatever we sought to resolve.

Driving to town on black ice

reminds me that learning to dance

pained me like foolish politics.

I prefer my music sitting down,

like you with your love of ballads

going sepia as you listen

to recordings eighty years old.

Driving slowly, all four wheels

on tiptoe, we arrive and park

by the river, where ice floes

crush over the low dam and birds,

mostly juncos and blue jays,

punctuate the colorless sky.

Where have all the purples gone?

Don’t you remember how bruised

last winter looked when observed

by the bravest local artists?

We haven’t seen them puttering

at their easels for many months.

We haven’t smelled their oil paint

or licked our lips over thick

slathers of acrylic: not since

the pandemic arrived, flaunting

its dread symptoms and snuffing

the gist of our public lives.

We still drink coffee outdoors

seated on a cold stone wall

where our friends can see us and wave

from a safe distance. Not even

black ice can keep us at home

all day. But if we skid and crash

we might, in the fatal instant,

recover those purple visions

upon which winter depends.

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