Snow is on the sidewalks, and in the streets,
a thin layer covering
the
Mississippi River, on top of four-inches of
ice
—the houses and buildings are all
lit—glittery, excited, fires glowing
in
hearths, furnaces burning red hot—the frost on the windows
are
like shells and pearls…
The world, my world—as I rush out into the
cold to meet it, this
early
Saturday morning—lies in a coffin of ice, brisk air, but I
must
go sell newspapers costing: “Five Cents!” thus,
I head on
downtown, I tell myself, I’ll make a dollar… (I’m ten, it is 1957).
I see people sitting in their houses as I
walk by: men, women and
children—as if their minds are unoccupied, at 5:30 a.m.!
Some of the houses are covered with blotches
of snow; black iron
fences
now egg-shaped with delicate streams of flurry-white:
not
even one curl of grass rises around the
sidewalk stones.
Walking in Minnesota snow can get heavy on the legs,
feet,
and upper torso, if not sticky at times: a
mile or two can seem
like
an immense distance between solid ground and house to
house
plots…
I glance to and fro, from one white house to
another, they all seem
the
same, the same whiteness that is, all with their shadowy
silhouettes,
as the sun rises.
I’d like to lay down in the snow and make an
angel, but I’ve got no
time,
thus I pass, the snow covered boulevards reluctantly.
Every time I walk this way, at 5:30 a.m., it
seems like an eclipse.
But I like the quiet morning cold, some
houses seem to whisper to
me—
as I walk by, as if they have secrets to tell but I’m too
young
to stop and listen; plus people are still sleeping, hands
and
knees just awakening, old men clambering out of bed,
holding
onto railings and just plain thinking, thinking, of what to
do
next.
You can see many things, things that astonish
a young kid, on a
Saturday morning walk, just walking and minding your own
business.
But I have luminous labors ahead—I’ll sell
those papers for the St.
Paul
Pioneer Press, make a dollar, and perhaps then some, I
know
what I’ll cry out, I always practice it on the way:
“Come AND GET YOUR St. Paul Saturday Pioneer Press PAPER,
only
five cents!”
My fingers often get numb from the cold, I
have gloves, but it’s hard
to
take the nickel or dimes, to make change: fingers fumble, like
goats
dance, I mean like goats leap….
Note: “White Houses” was originally a short story,
No: 539 ((Written: 12-5-2009), remade into poetic prose 4-23-2013. #3870
