Elegant and Ugly (Recovered from December 31, 2017)

Winter solstice…
Not my favorite time of year…
I’d rather hibernate
like a bear
than slog through
the holidays…
A yearly reminder
that I’m too broke
to do much of anything
for anybody…
Somewhat colder weather
no matter what the North American latitude…
I would rather sweat a little
than freeze a little…
Even though
I was born and raised 
in New England
through many a hard winter,
I’d still rather not
do cold…
I enjoy less clothing
rather than multiple layers
building
like a snake with multiple
old unshed skins…
Christmas and New Year’s,
Hanukkah and Kwanzaa…
Yep,
I could sleep through all of that…
Wake me when it’s over…
Last time I went to the VA
my heart rate was 64 beats a minute…
Usually it’s in the high nineties,
often over 100 bpm…
Little bit of white coat syndrome, maybe…
But the heart rate is slowing down…
Hibernation will do that…
Heartbeat so slow
you might end up
mistaken for dead…
Relax…
Regroup…
Try to shed any clinging negativity…
I won’t be making any New Year’s resolutions…
Just going to keep on doing…
Focusing forward…
One step at a time…
One day at a time…
(Try to keep your mind
off of any thirteen-step program
slogans or references…)
There is simply work to be done…
A lot of it, actually...
Instinctual nesting behavior…
Swimming upstream for miles
to spawn…
Piling rocks in the sand
in pleasing patterns
and Fibonacci sequences…
Shiny stones
and fragments of metal and mirrors
held together 
with mud and saliva…
Larvae in their cells
growing through the winter
pale and half-formed…
Conscious or unconscious?
Asleep and/or dreaming?
Awake and aware
of every single change
on the journey
from grub
to wasp?
Is a paralyzed tarantula
aware of each small bite
that the larva are taking
out of its internal organs
expertly leaving only the systems
that keep their food
alive?
Elegant and ugly 
all at the same time…
And nature often is
just that…
Life can be cruel
one moment,
and very kind the next…
It can lead you to believe
there is a pattern…
Kharma and such…
Even the ugly things,
over time,
have informed who you
decide to be…
Everything creates more opportunities
for even more choices…
The “Holidays”
always left me a little flat
with their shorter days
and long cold nights…
Like sleeping in a root cellar…
Icy tendrils
creeping under door sills…
Icy fingers spreading 
on the windows,
starburst on glass…
 
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