Day Twenty One
The January ice storm of 2024,
for most of us, for a few days,
the inconvenience or excuse
to hibernate with family, books or tv,
clean out the freezer of all that
bagged food we have been saving
for such an occasion, burn up the dry firewood,
call on our neighbors as we wait to see
if there will be mail delivery, or garbage pickup.
but for a couple of us, our car is declared a total loss
after its dive into a sinkhole, in the early morning drive
down Main St., due to a broken water main.
we will be talking about the anxiety of saving ourselves, and reliving those moments from this point on.
for one of us, who is too young to speak yet, we have lost both parents and an Uncle due to a live wire, downed by a falling tree. We will listen as our grandparents tell stories, and look through photo books of these people who we will never meet.
for some of us, we start the year off looking through the holes in the roof
where a branch of Douglas Fir broke through, making calls to insurance company, filling out forms, and researching repair contractors. we will create a new file in our cabinet labeled "2024 ice storm"
for ten of us, this storm was the final straw, the end of the line,
the time our heart slowed, our blood went cold, our eyes closed,
our story here complete,
while for most of us, we are ready
to forget the cold and move on
to whatever our normal is,
changing our towels and doing laundry,
get back to work, our event filled calendars,
getting back to the business of life,
doing our best to move forward, make life beautiful,
while stopping every now and then
to tell the stories of those lost to the ice storm of 2024.
