Ren Powell, Poet | Playwright | Teaching Artist

These flat days of winter are never about a loss of hope. It’s a loss of desire.
These days where the edges lose shape, surfaces reflect dull surfaces and the pieces of the world are packed away bit by bit, wrapped in featureless swaddling and stacked in damp cardboard.

Don’t get me wrong – there is a kind of comfort in this.

The word hibernation takes effort. It’s a cold word whose syllables tick boxes on a paper pinned to clipboard, held awkwardly between the bend of an elbow and the clutching of fingers. It’s a word that tries to pull things together from the outside. It’s a word that stays on its toes, observing.

The Norwegian word for hibernation is dvale. It begins with a drop, and a deeper secondary drop –  then a broad exhale, and a secondary letting go that tucks back into itself.

Leonard climbs into the chair and curls around. He drops his body over the cushions. Then settles deeper over his bones with a sigh.

He looks at me without anticipation while I sit here at the desk.