andsoon.ca

White it the air
Outside it’s been coming down for days
and days and days. It’s nothing but
pure white out there, white in the sky,
white is the ground, white it the air,
white white white. Driving to work I
see a helicopter that comes so close
to ground that it just seems like
some silly toy, but it
disappears back into the white
soon too, barely realizing it had ever
almost left it. And who can tell me
just what is the source of
so much white? I hypothesize that it is
Moby Dick blown to bits at sea, Ahab’s
great-great grandson with a torpedo shell,
a horrific Nantucket Nor’wester
strewing the incredible evidence
even to here in the land-locked prairies.
Obsession would be destroyed in
some magnificent catharsis like this—
a great explosion to decolour a canvas.
Or perhaps this is the result of some
proud deity’s tantrum instead? Sheets
of loose leaf paper scattered, porcelain
plates smashed among ivory pigeons
and alabaster polar bears. I can’t see
past five feet up there anyways, so
what difference is it to me if it’s heaven
or helicopters, pigeons or polar bears?
Maybe they are rearranging the moon
for our next eclipse or adjusting
horoscopes or hiding the little red ball
up their sleeve while we are distracted
with these dancing half-shells of coconuts.
I worry that when all this begins to melt
I won’t be able to build an arc fast
enough and it will flood the Earth all over
again and then it will only be good for those
hardy polar bears. But, of course,
that could be wrong since of all those things
the white could be, I’ve never seriously considered
simple frozen water. Too easy. Too simple.
And so it is with lamentable loss of aplomb
that I witness this melt away with,
as it swells the banks of the river,
and then not with a bang today,
but with a whimper tomorrow
into the waters of Hudson Bay
which I will call the incredible ocean
if you will.