-Appreciations of winter-

Conversations turn to forecasts more frequently now,

And with a greater sense of urgency.

––Bedsheets retreat from their lines, and the rope

Makes little sense of itself.

––Wooly 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.

I know of these things and other things which came to live alongside me.