Debra LaValley's Blog

I am finding it hard writing anything of worth this week. There was a catastrophic earthquake in Haiti that has killed many thousands of people. It is all very tragic. My thoughts and prayers are with all touched by this tragedy.

I dug out my poetry collection and will post a poem I wrote many years ago on a winter’s night. I believe I was sitting in the living room at my parents’ house (I was still living at home at the time) and Tasha the cat was sitting on the television. It was one of her favorite spots because of the warmth. I was remembering at the time a night years even before that night when an ice storm put about an inch of ice on the road. I was at my friend’s house who lived down in “The Bog.” It was so slippery – no vehicles could make it down the hill. I spent the night and we strapped on ice skates and joined a group of neighborhood kids and skated around the roads. It was a blast.

Winter Night

Closets stuffed with clothes
a moth chews silently
while children skate
on frozen roads.
It’s all here within the glass.
Who will throw the
next stone and free the air?
The cat sits on top
of the TV — staring at
a picture framed above.
Her tail twitching.
There is a black hole
in the living room —
too dense. It has
collapsed from its own weight.

The cat disappears into the void.