Power Out-[R]-age
A tree fell across the wires.
Our power went ‘poof’!
No lights. No water. No heat.
We lit a log fire and strove to keep
sub-zero temperatures at bay.
It was as if God had stepped
away from the high altar
and gone out for a coffee
at the local Tim Horton’s
leaving a deserted church
to the mercy of the elements.
Guttering candles surrender
their skimpy lives but scarcely
warm us as more snow falls.
Shadow demons creep in
with the gathering night.
Shivering beneath piled blankets,
we cling together and hope
to keep out the growing cold.
Warning: Raw Poem
Another raw poem. We lost power at 8:30 am on Wednesday, 30 November and it returned on Friday, 2 December at 2:00 am. 42 hours without power and the temperatures not rising above +2C and dropping to -3 / -5C. No light. No heat. No water. No phone. No internet. I thought of the victorious general who announced to the tune of the bombs bursting behind him on our tv screen that “We bombed them back to the Stone Age.”
Well, here we were sitting in our own miniature stone age and mentally unprepared for the shock of what it all means. What a struggle: to light the fire, to keep it alight (day and night), to keep warm, to prepare hot food over a log fire in an insert fireplace (and us so lucky to have one; some of our neighbors didn’t), and we won’t talk about going to the bathroom! At least, I now what it means to lose power at the start of winter. However, I really don’t understand what it means not only to lose power, but to know that an enemy deliberately and callously stripped that power away.
I tried to put those thoughts into the first version of the poem, but then I took them out as I didn’t want to politicize what is right now a nature poem, pure and simple. The out-[R]-age is there, with or without those other memories and that out-[R]-age comes partly from the knowledge that our civilization, if indeed we can truly claim to be civilized, is indeed skating on very thin ice.
rogermoorepoet 
I am sorry that the power went out… good poem indeed even in its raw state
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Thank you, Mr. Cake. A Canadian winter as seen from our back porch. We survived. That’s what really matters in the long run.
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Indeed it looks hard and your point about the fragility of civilisation is so true. I think we are always haunted by the collapse of the Roman Empire and the reversion to barbarism which is, after all our natural state.
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Think the fall of communism. The Pax Americana may not be far behind, and democracy, as we know it, may fall along with it.
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Indeed, oligarchy might be the default setting for exhausted systems
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Long power outage…beautiful picture and words!
We once lost power for about 24 hours. The kids and I set up camp in the candlelit living room and told stories…inconvenient, but joyful!
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My father and grandfather built a sea-side bungalow with no running water and no electricity. The power outages take me back to my childhood. Hurricane Arthur, two summers ago, gave us a ten day outage. Now that was difficult. The temperatures weren’t too bad. At 20 or thirty (or more!) below, we would have had problems. All round, we were very lucky. That’s a PEI bird that didn’t make it: Clare’s photo — she does the micros.
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10 days are hard to imagine. How did people live without electricity?…Lol
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If you don’t know what it is, you don’t miss it. Oil and paraffin lamps, wood stoves and fireplaces, carry the water from the local spring … the best bread and cakes I ever ate were baked by my grandmother in the old cast-iron oven attached to the wood cooker and fireplace.
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Now that just sounds romantic…
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Not just romantic: delicious! That grandma’s the wonderful lady who taught me how to cook, starting when I was old enough to stand on the kitchen stool and see what was happening on the stove.
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Oh, I’m glad the power is back on but my what a gorgeous view! Thank goodness for log fires and blankets. I love hunkering down in a snow storm – with the power on, mind you… I had no idea the temperatures had gotten so cold up where you are. We’re having record warmth!
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I’ve updated it now with some thoughts on what I left out. The temperatures are meant to drop tomorrow night. At -15C or -20C, life would not have been that pleasant. That’s our backyard with between 8″ and 1 foot of snow. We get deer through and moose and an occasional black bear and snow shoe hares and all sorts of birds …
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Now I’m jealous! That sounds like winter wonderland!
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