Winter Recipes from the Collective

And yet, more often we were silent, preferring
the river over anything we could say—

Outside the car, the cows and pastures are drifting away;
they look calm, but calm is not the truth.
Despair is the truth. This is what
mother and father know. All hope is lost.

This is why we search for love.
We search for it all of our lives,
even after we find it.

stayed where I put you.

Not in our heads,

Insight, my sister said.

Now it is here.

But hard to see in the darkness.

You must find your footing

before you put your weight on it.

Stars gleaming over the water.

The leaves piled, waiting to be lit.

for the world to penetrate?

It must go somewhere,

it cannot simply sit on the surface—

How heavy my mind is,

filled with the past.

Is there enough room

Life, my sister said,

is like a torch passed now

from the body to the mind.

Sadly, she went on, the mind is not

there to receive it.

All too soon I emerged

my true self,

robust but sour,

like an alarm clock.