Sudden Snow

Sudden snow

I glanced through the snow-filled night,

eyes searching for another human

connection. Chilled as I drove up the icy road

toward my home, a fleeting spot of fear found its way

into my body. What if?

What if what?

If I lost control.

I'm all alone.

Funny how life changes like the sudden snow

of a winter day. Once warm, now colder than

an ice bath.

Or once lonely, now surrounded, engulfed

with psychic arms embracing.

Or again, once safe

now vulnerable.

Inexplicably.

But it's happened to you, somehow,

almost before you even know it.

Like the way liquor hits you after you've had

your third martini and knocks you on your

butt. That's how fast it changes

sometimes.

For better or worse.

Now I see another person, struggling

home on uncertain streets, a fellow traveler.

We smile, encouraging one another,

bound together unpredictably through

an experience. Never a word between us,

but the knowledge that someone out

there is on the same road

makes it all OK somehow.

Home.

Warmed.

By my heater, to

which I've now proclaimed my

everlasting gratitude. And by

that glance, that look of surety

in the midst of an unsure world.

That connection between winter wayfarers.

Sudden snow.

I’m not alone.