From Stillness to Unbearable Cold.

The last leaves fall,
red as the dark side of sheets against sunlight.
Winter beckons at our doorstep.

Cold covers lay softly against warm sleeping skin,
deserts of cotton drifting down slopes of night breathing backs.
Crickets in crawl spaces chirp midnight gospels,
while unwatched clocks tick faithfully on dark walls.
Like weary worker bees, eyelids flutter in slumber,
quietly fighting the floorless ocean of rest.
The mind surrenders like a factory unplugged,
prompting senses to dance without subtitles for reason.
Dreams splash and echo in the stillness,
dropping like water from pipes slowly leaking.

Winter beckons at our doorstep.
Outside the first snow falls with deafening grace,
blotting out the sounds and shadows of all other motion.
Frost like hungry dew crawls into window panes,
crackling and claiming lands of chilled glass.
Songirds nestle deep in the wombs of trees,
while powdered branches bow respectfully,
dancing a delicate adagio for winter’s inauguration.

Long hushed hours pass,
snowlight sparkling against the velvet of night.
Then the crisp of stirring wings on brittle branches
awakens life under blankets.
Escaping breath betrays the chill in the air,
as sunrise spills through splits in the curtains,
dousing bedded bodies with daybreak.
Well-slept limbs stretch under covers,
cloistered within their soft feathered refuge.
Warm feet slide down the side of the bed,
from stillness to unbearable cold.
Bare soles press against the coarse hardwood floor,
exposed skin stinging with the piercing chill of contact.

Outside, sunlight explodes against the diamond dust bedspread of snow.
Inside, tea kettles sing steam, blanketing kitchen windows.
Winter beckons at our doorstep.