Poetry by Arlene L. Mandell
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Seventeenth Storm
Once again she zipped her parka, pulled on fraying woolen gloves. A foot of new snow still untrammeled by deer. This latest storm, canceled plans, offered space to fill with thoughts as she bent to her task. She recalled another storm: a small girl walking with her parents down the center of a wide street on the way to a wedding. A party dress, woolen coat, rabbit fur muff. Nearly sixty years since the famous blizzard of '47. White silence, clang of metal snow shovel against cement, echoed with voices of all who were gone: father, mother, aunts, uncles, even some first cousins. Sweating now, she unzipped the parka, heard her doctor's words: You're one of my healthiest patients--small comfort as many of his patients had high blood pressure, controlled, like hers, with diet, exercise, expensive pills. Still, chances are she'll live well past eighty, she reminded herself as she neared the end of the path, cheeks flushed, fingers numb, grateful for the crisp air filling her lungs, grateful even for the blizzard. |
| Breathing
Lesson
You cannot know loneliness till you’re the only one breathing in the room after years of someone shifting beside you, sounds and movements so slight you don’t actually hear them but in some deeper place you know. You cannot know loneliness till, still asleep, you feel that faint throbbing, move toward the warmth of one who can quicken those pulsations, but that space is cold. Breathe in, now hold the breath deep inside, release - one, two, three, four, breathe in again, concentrate on the breath, empty your mind, let go, let go. |
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Copyright 2006 Arlene Mandell
All Rights Reserved
| Arlene L. Mandell, a retired English professor from New Jersey, now lives in sunny retirement in Santa Rosa, CA. |