-Appreciations of winter-

Conversations turn to forecasts more frequently now,

And with a greater sense of urgency.

Gone is the "fried-egg-cooking-on-the-sidewalk" observation

Of last summer's heatwave,

––Bedsheets retreat from their lines, and

The rope makes little sense of itself,–– but

A warm-front in the weather finds the lines

Pinned with bedsheets again as neighborhood
Takes advantage of the breach.

––Heavy socks are given top-drawer priority;

Folded into themselves they rest there

Nestled side-by-side like buntings.

––There exists an interior scent to winter;

The scent of fuel on fire;

The exhaled heat has a dry, sweet breath.

(In winters past, out there, my early friends

Took-on the shape of fierceness.

I suppose to the same extent, I did, too.)

––Treading the hard-packed snow

There is heard a murmur to moving wheels,

(a sound akin to rubbing an inflated child's balloon, barehanded)

And too, beneath the soles of rubber boots on the march.

––The flesh is polished

To a brightness not found in the burn of summer.

––The ocean lifts and falls in its heavier weight.

––The river and the bay stiffen their backs

In the spirit of the mighty glaciers from whence they came.
––The windswept struggle of the high-collared passersby,

––The inner light at sundown, all the mewing gulls on the wing,

Change their attitudes within the drop of winter striking a more

Resilient sense of themselves.