Three Minutes to 2019
In this moment of civilization, we sit like icicles waiting for spring…
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Darkness stretches across this small town of Jasper, Alberta.
A thick black cloud of silence surrounds us on this New Year’s Eve,
despite the pristine white backdrop of the Canadian Rockies.
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The power went out.
All the eclectic preparations, excessive impulses and joviality
have been extinguished,
by a single incidence of electric malfunction.
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We sit in this cheap hotel,
cheap couches with the smells of smoke and lavender combined,
our television signal stolen abruptly,
we are at the discretion of the moonlit sky
to guide our fumbling hands.
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With all the distractions taken away I consider this moment a blessing,
but you despise it.
I imagine the drones of people at the bars,
uneasy, possibly already intoxicated, unsure of how to behave,
without the accompaniment of light.
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Iimagine that this may be,
how our world comes to an end;
rather abruptly, on a simply ordinary day, in a single moment of time,
a global switch will be turned off,
erasing every trace of our civilization.
But in this moment of civilization,
we sit like icicles waiting for spring, and we watch.
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The busy streets become mere phantoms,
crossed, once in a while by fleeing passengers of time,
whose midnight plans have been rudely interrupted,
they wander back and forth, restless and undecided,
unprepared,
for an evening alone.
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This night,
a nightmare for the extrovert,
is the truest time for reflection,
a philosopher’s dream, a writer’s haven,
a heart’s greatest desire to finally be heard.
There is no better celebration.
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The three of us in stillness, darkness, contemplation, connotation,
watching the world spin around the sun
knowing this to be a passing moment,
and recognizing its worth.
Every thread of this moment is pure silk,
it seeps into the crevices of my being,
it is the reed song of spring,
and I breathe it in, deeply,
for, when the light comes back,
the illuminated presence will be nonsensical,
it will be no place for persons such as I.
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When the electrical currents start to flow,
the generators stop and the celebrations start,
you pop the cork of the pink champagne,
as I move towards my room
and I follow my heart’s inclination to write,
accompanied by the evening’s aspirations and your relief,
three minutes to twenty-nineteen.
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Anna Rozwadowska 2018
