I Can Barely Fathom

The temperature has dropped again, and gusty winds have delivered snow, it’s falling now, steady and slanting on what remains of the wind. I watch the chickens retreating to the shelter of their coop, walking in their forward-falling way. I watch what ground had been bared by cold rain and warm sun turning white again. The wood box is empty; the boy whose turn it is to fill it is away, and I know I’ll be stepping outside in a matter of minutes to fetch an armload or two. I think that filling the wood box is a good chore for a child or even (in this case) an almost-adult, so I will bring in only enough to last until his return.

The cat sleeps beside me, folded into himself, rear paws tucked between the fronts. Tail, too. I taught class this morning and we all had a fine time of it, reading and writing and talking and laughing, and I’m realizing that soon the semester will be over and how much I will miss my students. The quiet ones, the bawdy ones, the funny ones, the serious ones, the one who’s progressively losing both his vision and his hearing, the one whose father was murdered and who tells me that even now, when he returns home, he can’t be certain there’ll be enough food on the table, the one who can write so pretty you’d hardly believe it but doesn’t want to share it much. I don’t push her. She’s young yet, not even out of her teens. There’s time yet. Lots of time. Indeed, I can barely fathom how much time she has.