Burden remembrance

NaPoWriMo day 3 - writing a "glosa," a poem that explains or responds to another poem. It takes one section of and responds line by line, often including that line in what is newly written. Sounds complicated...let's see how this goes. 

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"Two feet of snow at my parents' place, in another season.

Here, the cicadas sing like Christian women's choirs

in a disused cotton mill. Belief is a kind of weather.

I haven't seen proper snow for three years."

 - Erik Kennedy, Letters From the Estuary

The mind wanders freely, to a time when it couldn't. 

When it was tethered to tired, creaky, cement-covered hands.

Sealing up cracks in the foundation, doors slammed shut by

two feet of snow at my parent's place, in another season.

Now it sees more, processes at a constructive pace.

Beams come in and filter out - an awoken landscape

where all life is an ocean's surface, trapped in wet heat.

Here, the cicadas sing like Christian women's choirs.

But still the evenings buzz, far too fast to understand.

A thought and a wish and a hope, flung high and low,

eyes cast about like the dizzying spell of a hurricane

in a disused cotton mill. Belief is a kind of weather. 

Morning draws it to the umbrellas drying at the door,

the first warning of weight left ahead and behind.

Then, in a late afternoon's dream, it comes to me:

I haven't seen proper snow in three years.