Another Winter

Winter is here once more. (What were we expecting?) Winter has crept up on us.

The leaves came down on schedule when we weren’t watching (weren’t watching the leaves, that is)— we were watching the news instead of the leaves, and one day we woke to bare trees and frozen puddles, wondering how we missed the colours.

As for summer—was there a summer? Why don’t we remember?

Look outside: it’s a day without brine, sky bland as the white of a hard-boiled egg, no flakes in the air today, no frost ferns on the window, gaiety in abeyance

only another winter day, only the cold, and the early dark, and a growing desire to mend fences

maybe a wish or two, quiet ones: to get a few things done while we still can, a few things, slowly, one by one,

and to see, and to see, and to see