The
thermometer says exactly 32 degrees, freezing or melting. Neither
here nor there. . . at the border, in a room without enough chairs,
waiting with your bundle of possessions and the uneasy feeling that
none of these things will be adequate on the other side. Outside
the window a single drop of water hangs on the tip of an icicle for
hours. A long time ago she showed me how to take the blossom at
the base, snap off the stem, then carefully withdraw the pistil,
pulling it slowly down until the little globe of nectar poised there,
ready to take on the tongue. The single drop distilled from a
lifetime falls to shatter on the frozen ground and the mindless soul
flies away to its heaven on the honeysuckle south wind, that's come
five hundred miles over the snow.
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