Anahata’s streets are slushed with crystalline frostings as if the whole city was built of the tiers and icing of a winter wedding cake. She is not so much ruled by her whiteness but rather by her aquamarine. The interlace of Anahata’s hill-town streets appear fishbowled, as seen through a sea glass green; and she is a city that is often mistaken for a town. But relative to the other rural centers of the region, she is among the most urbane. Here there is always the soft melody of plash and plink, of ice liquefying into glacial drool. Here there are harbors of boats bobbing in wait for the thaw that never quite warms her shores. Here is a hilltop of memorials and markers of men who once walked to the tops of her peaks. Ordained steeples and legislative spires reach up in adornment of her overcast skies. In the farther north, where tundra rolls into the far edges to meet with salt, the sun will push the stars further and further west until the last drop of midnight blue is poured beyond the horizon, and the lemon baby blues will rule for several unseen moons. But here in Anahata, tucked beneath ridges of white and harbored among pools of slate bluegreen, the sun is seldom seen on any day.
Anahata’s women and men sometimes forget how to get along, sometimes hurl moods and memories across kitchens and bedrooms in platters and drawers spilling fragments and remnants of dreams. Her children are found in the snow, in wet trousers and soggy mittens, in rubber boots and with noses that run. Dinner is always meatloaf and gravy and milk. When the meal is over, there is enough time for two hours of T.V. before bed, and there are enough channels for everyone to have a favorite show. This is the time when the small green glow still appears in the black at the end of the broadcast day right after the anthem, the test pattern, and the static. At bed time routine washings, brushings, kisses and prayers prepare each inhabitant for slumber; and each one dreams of the yellowest orb in the most azure air above the most emerald plains.
In the morning on days when the sun is seen no one knows what to do. Offices are closed, mills are shut down, and the fishermen all come home. Children remember they have bicycles, and the slush pulls back into drains. On this day, too, forests remember themselves as trees parading long cascades of lichens and tendrils of moss. Insects of all kinds coalesce in a cacophony of manic choreographies and buzzings of songs alerting in their own unwitting demise hoodlums likes robin, raven, wren and finch. Barbecues are dragged from garages and sheds, and, instead of meatloaf, there are burgers and dogs, chips and soda for dinner. Afterward kids ride bikes through the dusk, rush in with red cheeks and fall to sleep without remembering their prayers or their shows. The nights after these days offer sleep without dreams until somewhere in the middle, a downy pall hems in and by morning Anahata’s colors turn cold. As pale light fills each room, dreams trouble and creep. Heavy skies let go the tiniest grains, until Anahata’s rooftops and roads are resalted and sheltered with sea.
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