Peter Baltensperger

Parallelograms, Shifting

 

 

The biting polar wind chewed its way through an aching countryside, into shuddering cities, frost-bitten trees, sounding like desperate wolves howling at desperate full moons. Everything froze. Everything trembled without being able to tremble, frozen- air transfixed. Not even the wolves. Somewhere a river stopped, somewhere a column of smoke, a photograph.

 

I have never heard, let alone seen, a wolf howling at a full moon. Nor has anyone else, not in real life. Yet the very thought sends shivers down frozen spines, through agonizing veins, into shivering hearts. This is how it is with polar winds. Nobody ever knows, or sees, when it comes to immobilized howls. They simply come, and never seem to go, as if eternal in their own mysterious ways.

 

Somewhere late on a silent evening over a quiet lake, where a peaceful sun slides effortlessly into the receptive water, the half-forgotten echo of a solitary loon. No one will ever forget, even without the wind.    

 

 

 

Peter Baltensperger writes from London, Ontario, Canada.