day 34: The Quiet Year Part I (Anything But)

The year is anything but quiet.
I can hear the animals eating through our food stores even now
Rat teeth clicking on corn
Bear teeth ripping into cabbage heads
Teeth I don’t even want to think about, dripping with the salt of the deepest sea water
And who knows what they make off with?
There is less food, we know.
And noises at night.
Speaking of noises at night:
One time one of the older fellows caught his ankle in some low-lying coast rocks
And he moaned, lowly, over the ripping of the tide and the whipping of the wind.
And at night, the gaping wound in our earth moans, like a quick broken ankle.
The children gather around, asking questions
Things that no one ever felt the need to ask aloud like,
“What is that sound? What do you think is down there?”
Before we moved to the coast, we carried these children in slings on our backs
Across terrain which would just as likely see you dead as alive
And didn’t have time to ask a thing.
Just kept moving forward.
In summer, the ocean waves destroy an entire row of houses.
One time I thought I saw a bird in a tree - blue.
I blinked and it was gone, quietly. 
This was not like that.
A wrenching, grinding of jousts and metal bits
The supporting wall, clinging to the others like a leader line to fibers
And the loom spins backwards and everything unravels.
It is loud. I can hear it even as I put the final nail into our brand new food storage.
The animals don’t come around at night as often, anymore.

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