Seasonally Affected and Disordered by Judith Cody

Sky stuffed with leaden clouds
seeming ready to suffocate like a
soggy pillow
feeling like the
regulation issue
California winter winding-clothes
triggering Seasonal Affective Disorder
in those who still have
a few leftover ice age survival
genes broadcasting
to their brain
and their bones SAD
signals long after those
olden programs
should have faded out
like Voyager
still sends us missives from
outside our solar system.

“Hibernate in this darkness until
spring brings back the sun,” chant
our errant genes. How strong can a
tiny old gene be anyway?

Trying not to listen.
Are you with me?

---

about the author:

Judith Cody, poet, composer and photographer won national awards from Atlantic Monthly and others, also national awards in music and photography. A poem is in the Smithsonian’s permanent collection, in Spanish and English editions. Poems were quarter-finalists for the Pablo Neruda Prize and won honorable mentions from the National League of American Pen Women and are published in over 90 journals. Cody was Editor-in-Chief of the first “Resource Guide on Women in Music,” she wrote the internationally noted biography of the composer, “Vivian Fine: A Bio-Bibliography,” Greenwood Press and “Eight Frames Eight,” poems. She was an editor of a PEN Oakland anthology. Cody loves long hikes in the sunshine and teaching natural gardening.  She received the University of California Master Gardener lifetime achievement award. www.judithcody.com