Getting Through

By Harry Youtt

Life goes on. Skies turn darker gray,
Lightning has been striking the trees awhile.
We expected the storm, but this hasn’t eased the burden.
Already thunder booms around us,

as we sit down, crouched again together
to another meal, thankful for the way
the fire in the grate keeps us warm enough
through the worst of the storm, and our minds away

from those places outside and down the road,
places we can’t do a thing about right now,
but maybe tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow!
We gaze into each other’s eyes

and understand we’ve been
thinking similar thoughts
as we try not to worry the thunder louder,
or fester the danger of avalanche.

Right now, the mountain is far enough away.
The curtains are drawn to lessen the lightning’s flash.
And we’re well-aware the landslide won’t hesitate
on our account or listen for our advice.

Tomorrow we’ll go outside to what will be new sunlight.
We’ll begin sweeping debris. Then we’ll go over
to check on how the mountain fared in the storm.
We’ll figure out what to do to make things right again.

Harry Youtt is a long-time creative writing instructor in the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, where he teaches classes and workshops in memoir writing, narrative nonfiction, fiction, and occasionally, poetry. He has authored numerous poetry collections, including, most recently, Saint Finbarr Visits the Pacific, as well as Getting Through, Outbound for Elsewhere, and Elderverses. All of them are available via Amazon.com. The sentiment behind the title of his collection: Getting Through refers directly to our current ongoing predicament. He assembled the poems there as his effort to assist us to shelter in place and gather back collective wits for the conflicts that are to come. Harry coordinated the Los Angeles Poets Against the War event back in 2003, which, to him, seems like more than a hundred years ago.

Photo by Bethany Laird on Unsplash.