Sameness

Every morning I open the door to let the dog out,
I grind the beans
Conscious, sweet routine
But this morning, again,
it is snowing
misty waterfall of cold droplets coalesced and painted white,
snow lining the branches,
spotlighting winter's design of the world
and the road a spurious track

Sunday morning on a binary date
the same sweetness, the same pain
Silence is a thrum in my ears
the shadow of a pen, moving,
lying in bed, crouched in the sand, in the pine forest
where I lay the blanket, longing,
where I photographed the shadow
in the summer sun

Transformative Wind

A multilayered point in the year: the weather has been saturated, warm, and when I first titled this post some time ago there had been thick, blowy, thunderstorm winds, tangible wind, thick wind, wind you could hold in your hand like dough.
Then came the days of popping color, the road to home with its overhanging beeches and maples in their autumn green and gold, like driving into magic, a path I've taken in white blinding snow and through these leaves, so many years now, following toward home.
Rain, rain and then this late afternoon in the hollow of the graveyard, looking up its hills, I saw how the branches are now bare, charcoal sketchmarks against the horizontal wash of sunset colors.
For the first time surrounded by the winter horizon, knowing again how much I love the months where the shapes of the trees are revealed -- not too much, really, about those months, but that -- earth bones revealed.
But just the other night the crickets woke and sang, we shed our coats and shoes, and today I ran onto the sodden lawn, barefoot, to play with the dog.
Summer's remnant, somnolent but still a presence, the crest of fall, life imbued with death, and now, winter's look.