"Cold enough for you?"

2.28.2025

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BLUE NORTHER

Across North Central Texas, people call them blue northers.
Bitter winter winds blow down all the way from Canada,

racing over the prairie like Mario Andretti is behind the wheel,
dropping the temperature ridiculously far below freezing.

"Cold enough for you?"
"Yup. If this is for me, it can quit anytime."

Life slows down, businesses and schools close,
and God help you if it rains just before the norther hits;

the world will be covered in a sheet of ice.
Power lines and tree limbs snap, the roads are a danger,

and many water pipes give up the ghost and burst.
The wind speaks with a ghostly voice,

"woooo," and you had better get the livestock in the barn.
Salt the porches and walkways, put chains on the tires,

get out the old checkerboard and the playing cards,
and settle in to wait it out, like waiting out a siege.

People in other places tend to think of Texas as hot,
and a lot of the time that's true enough.

You can see a seventy degree Christmas or New Year.
But the next day a norther strides in and slaps your face,

and everything changes for a few hard days.
I have seen my father put on his wife's pantyhose

under his long-underwear, and two pairs of pants on top.
The cold bites hard on people who are used to heat.

The smart ones are prepared, late in the fall they stock up.
Rock salt goes in the shed, the fruit is canned,

a pig and a yearling calf go into the huge deep freezer.
A cord or two of wood is cut, tire chains are checked,

repaired if needed, and put in the back of the truck.
The chainsaw blade is sharpened and oiled, too,

for the limbs that will fall, probably right in the way.
Then, when the norther comes like an unliked relative,

which is a fair comparison, they can smile about it.
If the power goes out, they can cook on the old wood stove,

they light the kerosene lanterns and play checkers.
There is hay in the barn and the fences are strong.

"Cold enough for you?"
"Yup. If this is for me, it can quit anytime."

The family is close, and if the cold night is long, so what?
In three days, maybe four, the sun will melt the ice,

and the world will recover, and heal with the warmth.
Time after time, winter after winter, the world always recovers.

And the life we know once again goes on.

jobe

note: There is also a hard seltzer named Blue Norther, but I have never tried it.

Winter is nature's way of saying, 'Up yours.'

Robert Byrne

LEAPING FROM THE MOUNTAIN TOP, I FALL GRACEFULLY.

Clouds dance to the music of my passing
as I glide above the tops of pine trees.
This is the tune of the years that I have lived.
Nesting owls marvel at my beauty. All the sky
is a republic, but I am not a citizen. Rain
moistens my chapped lips, and far below
people gasp, knowing that I will die. Alone,
I had leaped from the mountain top.
With my last thought I decide
that I am not falling down, no indeed.
The earth is racing up to catch me.

jobe

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A poem by Adrienne Rich:

LIVING IN SIN

She had thought the studio would keep itself;
no dust upon the furniture of love.
Half heresy, to wish the taps less vocal,
the panes relieved of grime. A plate of pears,
a piano with a Persian shawl, a cat
stalking the picturesque amusing mouse
had risen at his urging.
Not that at five each separate stair would writhe
under the milkman’s tramp; that morning light
so coldly would delineate the scraps
of last night’s cheese and three sepulchral bottles;
that on the kitchen shelf amoong the saucers
a pair of beetle-eyes would fix her own—
envoy from some village in the moldings...
Meanwhile, he, with a yawn,
sounded a dozen notes upon the keyboard,
declared it out of tune, shrugged at the mirror,
rubbed at his beard, went out for cigarettes;
while she, jeered by the minor demons,
pulled back the sheets and made the bed and found
a towel to dust the table-top,
and let the coffee-pot boil over on the stove.
By evening she was back in love again,
though not so wholly but throughout the night
she woke sometimes to feel the daylight coming
like a relentless milkman up the stairs.

Adrienne Rich 1929 — 2012 CE

note: She’s one of my heroes.

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THE WARMTH

Each of us is the warmth of life, of living;
the flame of existence. We are beauty,
we are grace, the richness of the field,
the blessing of rain and light.
And we must use our time well
so that the wonder is not wasted.
Friends, join me now in thanks.

-jobe

I'm thankful to be breathing, on this side of the grass. Whatever comes, comes.

Ron Perlman

So am I, Ron. It is the side of the grass to be preferred. Of course, if you’re on the wrong side of the grass I don’t believe you’re aware of it. Whatever.

In a few days, March 3rd, the surgeons will slice me open and remove my knee, replacing it with a knee-ish device. A device that is knee-like. I’m not sure which description I prefer.

That’s actually the easy part; the recovery is where the new pain sets in. It’s all good. The knee has steadily hurt since the Clinton administration, worse even than my first marriage, and that was a descent into the bowels of hell where satanic dogs ate my soul. But I have good healthcare insurance, so there’s that. It comes from my second wife’s union benefits.

If I survive the anesthesia (and that’s not a bad way to go) the book of jobe will continue on Tuesdays and Fridays like always. There’s nothing wrong with my fingers. I would say that there’s nothing wrong with my mind, but you know, that could be questionable. I was never like the other kids.

Thanks for reading this, and for supporting the book of jobe.

jobe