And Then Is Heard No More

May 16th 2014

Snow dropped on Colorado early this week. It fell in the night and was still slumbering in the trees in my garden, pale hands and fingers of the winter dragon, when I woke up and drew back the curtains. Resolute as a drugged sleeper, it clutched every surface, as though someone had forgotten to tell it to go. This is a scene that in late October might inspire excitement, but in the middle of May offends the eye, just another round of white when hints of floral had been mentioned, when daffodils had been spotted and so had a jocund mood. Well, not to elaborate on it too much, but it pretty well reflects the mood of this author in the wings right now - so much promise weighted under frozen uncertainty. Just note this, ye fervent writers and scribblers dreaming in technicolour of being crowned one day. It takes more than tripping through meadows of flowers. There are days and weeks like this when the Snow Queen settles in and puts you back in the refrigerator.

And then the clouds packed up and moved on. The mood lifted. Life, as they say, turns on a dime. And so it does. You draw back the curtains one morning and the scene has moved on to sunshine and bursts of verdure. All the jocundity a soul could ever ask for.

In the words of Wordsworth, "How could one but be glad?" The spinning world turns on. When I was a young writer and attended a weekly writer's group, the world stretched out before us scribblers as the ocean runs out beyond anything the eye can see, falling off but only to come around again on this bouncing cosmic ball. Twenty years later, that picture has faded in many corners. People that were young and vibrant as myself have stepped out of the frame, too many from suicide, others to disease. The world turns and casts a shadow; one more look and it has turned again into the sun. So our moments in the light are finite - we have a moment to squeak our tune and then we are gone.  Much much sooner than anyone thought. In all the vastness of space and the incomprehensible folds of time, we are a sharp shooting star that lights the earth for a moment and then is heard no more (in the words of WS.)
Snow falls and then the flowers. Make the most of it. The seasons come and fall away; nothing, not even the written word, lasts for very long.