Winter in Wisconsin is a prison sentence
on 250 acres compacted down to the area
of my grandfather’s farmhouse like the hay
bales in the white aluminum barn. There is
liberation in knowing that confinement can
be measured in thigh-deep furrows in the
snow, that it can be counted down in games
of chess on the rug by the fireplace, that I
might resume life on the outside in bare-
foot runs through warm grass that must
exist back home. So then why did I shrink
from the clear, dark sky above the cold
prison which seemed frozen in place when I
witnessed the motion of the stars in wide,
slow arcs through the emptiness of night?
Was it not also the motion of the Earth, the
motion of ourselves —
imperceptible —
inescapable?
