When waiting for the midnight sauna
One eats an extra bowl of chili
At dinner, eats extra early and spends
The evening stoking the fires
Of digestion and wood stove:
Because this is a winter sauna
In northern Minnesota, and the hole
In the ice has already been cut
And cut again an hour ago where it refroze.
You spend your time warming
Your mind, readying for the plunge.
After twenty minutes at one-eighty
One feels one has to go—
The hot cedar, the sweat, the looming
Losing of consciousness—
So you slide on your wool socks
Run down the frozen hillside under full-moon light
Grab the ladder, take the plunge.
In a moment, no breath no light no weight or thought or dream.
Just your heart, pounding.
Just your lungs, contracting.
And when you scramble out onto snow
Blanketed by winter, it is all
Warmth all glee all giddy all joy all dream.
The night is a vanilla gelato, frozen and still and sweet.
You stand naked in soaked socks
Stoking the fire from outside
The sauna—you are all this at once
A lunatic
A rambling sage
A silent monk
A single star.
Fun stuff. You have a real feel for this stuff. (Both the “winter dip” and the chronicle”.