Perspective
by Sydney Lea
The morning world looks pale as old flannel, and from here inside appears dead silent. I'm not sure why this should feel like a gift. It rouses my inner paganism, if that's in fact the word I'm looking for. The stove keeps us warm right through the winter, even the windows in some small measure, and so when a flake of snow drifts sidelong against the glass it dies in the instant. A pan with ashes to dump in my hand, I stand unmoving. It feels like a rite. Outdoors, caught short by the cold, our crab tree shows fruit that didn't get time to ripen. I could forge a metaphor if I chose, memento mori or some kindred thing, but I balk at that. It feels too easy. Just past our ridge lies the long wide river. Under ice, it rolls right on as ever.
First published in Plume (September 2025)
The poem feels like a moment where stillness becomes almost sacred, as if simply standing in the cold could open a quiet doorway inside the self. What moves me most is the way the speaker refuses to force meaning onto the scene, choosing instead to let the morning’s pale light speak for itself. The snowflake dying on the glass feels heartbreakingly tender a tiny life ending before it begins. Holding a pan of ashes becomes a small ritual, a gesture that gathers memory, warmth, and time in the same breath. The crab tree’s unripened fruit hints at loss, but the speaker resists turning it into a lesson, which feels deeply human. And the river beneath the ice offers the poem’s softest truth: even when everything looks frozen, something inside keeps moving, quietly, steadily, refusing to stop.
Dump christianity, restore Paganism !