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Show CHRYSALIS PAGE 242 and in the empty lots have broken and dried and blown away in a cyclone of seeds. The explosion of cold strips the leaves from the trees and flings them into the sky like yellow birds. Autumn has come and gone. The snow piles up in the yard and nests in the trees. Everything is cut of ice and cold. Snow grows out of the avalanched leaves and dry grass and dead flowers, white upon white upon white. A sparrow flies past the window, small, greedy, and cold. Is he looking in? They are used to my throwing out ends of bread and birdseed - and today I have neglected them. The flock spins off into the wind. This is an anniversary for me, a sort of birthday. It has been a year. What a new person I have become. I still read the obituaries first - old habits are hard to break. Sometimes the old dragons still roam. I haven't forgotten the anguish of the event that prompted this growth, nor the long midnight hours of heartache. I think of it every day. But I no longer brood over it. Except for the interminable check-ups every third month, and the x-rays and blood tests, I have eclipsed that event which brought me here. I am alive. |