" …nobody waves to anyone passing from the back porch of this caboose."

It seems as if a giant clockwork finally began WindingDown this week. Reliable to a split-second throughout the year, as the Solstice draws nearer, its purpose loses clarity, perhaps a gear's gone rusty. The whole mechanism will most certainly receive a reprieve come Saturday, when a new astronomical year will begin an instant after the tired, now ancient one disappears. These last few days became abstractions of themselves. The more deeply I delved into their nature, the less I seemed to understand. The more I came to understand, the less I seemed to know, even Glancingly.

The snow grows tired and gritty after two weeks and more on the ground. Dust despoiled its fresh white face and chased it into uneven blotches along the ground. I thought to cart some fresher stuff to rebuilt the melted pile on either side of the driveway entrance so I could hollow each out to hold my flickering luminaria candles in white bakery bags weighted with sand, but time slipped away from me again and again and again. The final week of any season serves as no productive period, as patterns set upon serial regrets start convincingly WindingDown. The energy required to initiate any act has already been drained to produce some quickly forgotten result carried away on cutting wind. The wind blew East, then that wind blew West before coming around again, each season seems short of semi-circular, a full quarter of an end.

I try to imagine what might come next, but I can hardly see this moment, let alone my manifest. Does destiny really propel me? Does gravity hold any sway? Is this a fresh experience or a continuance of yesterday? I need not know until I see, when a glance might adequately enlighten me. My anticipations my sole mortal enemy. My senses my only friend. I feel my way with ragged senses. I sense my way with feelings numbed. I try to hum, having forgotten the lyrics I once wrote to reassure myself. A chore seems daunting, delayed for a day before almost dispatching itself in a few scant minutes, the anticipation more grueling than the effort ever was. It's because that clockwork's WindingDown, and not evidence of any personal flaws. I might almost retain some worthiness until the clock's rewound.

Progressively weaker as the week reveals the pattern underneath. In mid-summer, when the water's high, no one suspects this reef beneath the waves. Best to pull the craft along until reaching the next channel. Nobody flies through this final bit of crossing, and landfall seems especially unlikely when a season's WindingDown. The little wind-up train which once could, hardly keeps pumping now. Its pressed tin water tank and coal car almost hollowed out. The spring which actually propelled the thing's gone flacid now and loose, and nobody waves to anyone passing from the back porch of this caboose.

©2019 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #GlancingKnow, #PureSchmaltz