Reading January

January by Charles Simic never fails to move me and I can't count how many times I have read it over the years:

Children’s fingerprints
On a frozen window
Of a small schoolhouse.

An empire, I read somewhere,
Maintains itself through 
The cruelty of its prisons.

In the most recent reading I thought of children stuck at home in these pandemic times, looking out the window in a snowy winter's day. They are captive of both the home and the school at once. This interview with Simic opens a tiny window into his world, his recollection of his own childhood:

You know how it is. You only have one life. You don't choose it. When things happen that way, I didn't complain. Kids in a big city in war time actually have a good time, because the parents are busy worrying about those sorts of things, and you are playing on the streets, and the streets are incredibly interesting. Parental supervision is minimal. So, everyone I knew from those days, later, who remember those days, all had a terrific time.