Article for 2012 Dec 05
This article is not in a series.
2012
2012 Dec
Dec 05 Wed
With winter waxwings wend their way. A flock of them to be found on the fringe of a forest. A feathered flurry in a leafless and otherwise lifeless environment. Like Christmas in the icy world.
They’re swathed like princes in the hues of the rainbow that comes during the sleetly showers.
Sleetly showers are the henchmen to the transition from the season of goldleaf to the silver core once concealed behind that veneer of gold the Earth’s tilt has now eroded.
The waxwings are the Fool in the inevitable Tragedy. The waxwings are the ceilinglight inside the seventeen-mile sewer. The waxwings are the flowers on autumn’s grave.
The gritter is the critter tittering behind me in the theatre when I watch the waxwings dance. The gritter is the hungered rat in the twentyseven-kilometre sewer, gnawing at my leg. The gritter is the child who gets on with life when confronted with death.
And in the child I see the future. For tragedy is only tragedy when it’s not comedy. A sewer is a tunnel of hope and you will get to the other end. A grave is a confirmation that life continues.
The waxwings taught me that there are occasionally diamonds in the coal that is winter. The gritter taught me that coal is a resource too. You just gotta smile at the winters of life, and if that’s difficult, and though this may sound unseemly, you just gotta grit your teeth. This is the gritter’s revelation.
For articles 2012 Dec 08 and 2012 Dec 16, see the appendix later in the blog.