A Nice Little Winter Poem For You

My experience is that post-holiday winter in the Midwest is forgettable. When the end of the year rolls around I'm never like, "And then there was all that **** that happened in February." This is because **** never happens between January and March, in my life. No landmarks by which I measure time.

In fact, from my Catholic upbringing I recall January and February being the first installment of "Ordinary Time" on the liturgical calendar. I find that title appropos.

Whereas this thread is appropos of nothing.

Which is my point, I guess. In grad school I was drinking a beer on the porch with my friend Hugh and I asked him, "Who cares? Who gives a **** about what we write? Our poems and stories?" And he said, "Well, someone needs to write about these things."

Things like the way a bike tire makes a track in a muddy road.

This poem is good:

Outside of Richmond, Virginia, Sunday” by Deborah Slicer

It’s the kind of mid-January afternoon"
the sky as calm as an empty bed,
fields indulgent,
black Angus finally sitting down to chew"
that makes a girl ride her bike up and down the same muddy track of road
between the gray barn and the state highway
all afternoon, the black mutt
loping after the rear tire, so happy.
Right after Sunday dinner
until she can see the headlights out on the dark highway,
she rides as though she has an understanding with the track she’s opened up in
the road,
with the two wheels that slide and stutter in the red mud
but don’t run off from under her,
with the dog who knows to stay out of the way but to stay.
And even after the winter cold draws tears,
makes her nose run,
even after both sleeves are used up,
she thinks a life couldn’t be any better than this.
And hers won’t be,
and it will be very good.