Allegheny Mission, Big Spring Baptist, Community Christian Fellowship:
Saturday night news scrolls every church name in seven counties, services
more than postponed. We don’t need the meteorologist to whisper inclement,
to warn us to stay indoors. We have a window shaped like a television set.
Tree lights flicker through a scrim of curtain next door where the pastor
of Fieldstone Christian and his wife plot their empty Sunday, sermon abandoned.
No one will hear anything about I am the holiness we are holy we pray for you
and maybe praise his name. The plow blinks yellow, scrapes the darkness,
shivers the drifts on our roofs, the hanging icicle lights. Inside, silence
wafts through the heating ducts. My son is asleep while the heavens
smudge from black to red. Snow sky. Hydrology. In the cul-de-sac,
there’s nothing on except a few panes of the neighbor’s window-glass
and some tilting FOR SALE signs. There’s nothing on except the wind
pulling at our siding, clouds bruising the sky. The news says it was a snow TKO,
one for the history books, and in the morning, between storms, the neighbors shovel,
go out to buy bread. I set my son upright again in the high drifts in our yard.
I’m ok, he says each time I right him in his bib pants and boots. The pitch and yaw.
Convenience. We drive tenderly to the 7-Eleven. Milk. Maybe a newspaper.
Rock salt. He asks what convenience means. I don’t have an answer.
I think holy. I think light. Later I tell him something about comfort. The news
drags in the evening, and with it, more snow. Our driveways retreat again
under the onslaught of white. We rest our weary feet on the ottoman, listen
to the neighbor’s dog, who barks at the red sky then stops when she hears
the thin crescent moon wailing. There are truckers stuck on the interstate
who haven’t eaten since yesterday. There are families sharing one thin blanket
on a high school floor. The news says stay in your vehicle, don’t wander and get
frostbitten, don’t spin your wheels—you’ll only dig in deeper. We are glowing
with televised radiance so nothing can hurt us. The news says this is an ongoing situation.