Decrying the Vernal Turn

After a day down in the high thirties, the temperature in Knoxville has stretched up to a balmy forty-three degrees, and a rather hypochondriacal cloud cover has cast over the new year's sky.

I took the dog for a run down the road after getting home late, but our usual route was made eerily new as the ensuing fog made sport of our perception. The distant alarmist voices of dogs and the parting chatter of friends were muffled in the mist and amplified in our imaginations, sounding like otherworldly songs as they passed through the electric drone of halogen streetlights. The fractal trees were etched even more clearly upon the air, revealing themselves as the bones of a proud neolithic race that, according both to Genesis and all theories to the contrary, has outlived us so far by at least a few days.

The rhythmic streetlamps, like worshipped saints, only lit the way unto themselves. All that was past them was a blur of fog, brought on by the slightest warming of the cold, wet air. After the divine turning of events, the first human tromp toward our supposed Jerusalem is a walk through mist. And we wait, even in the dead of winter, for the coming of the sun, as it laughs away both clouds and streetlights, eschewing all imitations. We wait, for the clearing of the air.