Winter Rain

With the crack of distant breaking trees,
Unheard and unseen,
Darkness and silence settles upon the house.
The furnace dies with a groan,
The game goes dark and silent,
My children's playstation ceases
And I sit entombed in ice,
My thoughts and fancies
But the worms of decay and corruption.

For it's not a spring rain outside the window,
Not a gentle spring rain that paints the scene
Of my sins in a wash of forgetful green,
Nor a summer rain fit to float Noah's ambitious cargo,
Flooding streets and basements in its eagerness,
Nor a longed for fall rain
That breaks drought's iron grip,
No, no, it's a grim gray rain
That freezes what it touches.
Parked cars, wires, waiting trash and branches
All gleam with a dull unhealthy pallor
And the old look out at black pavement and shudder.

You call, "Let's get the camping lantern
And play Monopoly round the kitchen table",
But I'm entombed in ice, hard as marble,
The fragmentary words that penetrate
Echo random, without connection or pattern.

My cell rings, her voice goes,
"Gary'll be salting the roads all night,
The power's out, Darling, I don't like the silence."

Passing the kitchen and the lantern light
I see in your lit faces how the future
Might flow straight and easy to its end.
I say, "The servers've crashed, I have to go in."

The power returns as I lie melted and spent
After yet another coupled death
Encased in another man's scent.
"That's better," she whispers,
Her head resting drowsy upon my shoulder.
I close my eyes, blocking the light.
The rocking of the bed'd stopped all thought
Bringing with it counterfeit life and delight.
Now I think of the unseen power company crew
And how ultimately their work is for naught.