North Dakota-1977

North dakota 1977

I walk outside in the winter,

The air to me smells like raw bacon.

I do not know why.

The snow blows in a blindness of white

 the sky a plate glass grey.

I walk to school,

8 years old and I walk alone.

I will find my way there.

My shoes shelve snowy flakes

upon my small, cold toes

and though my coat is warm

I still breathe the icy morning

my breath puffing out in long,

white strands.

This early, there is only the

low, milky sun and I

following our selected courses

And I ask the birds as I pass by

“Where do you go when the wind blows?”.

I worry for the birds.

I sift through snowy flakes on the ground,

feeling the small, cold pearls

of frozen bits here and there.

Making a wish that my eyes could see

something beyond the white

and feel warm again.

But here the air is cut through

like knives in my lungs.

I walk still down the street

And think of nothing.

Mind blank like the white morning.



Heather Lake