Winter, I am walking alone.
The place is bare but for the fence posts.
Gray, splintered wood, smooth texture
when caressed in the right way.
This hard earth meets each stride
with the sting of cold rejection,
a reminder my soles need repair.
Behind that line of ash and cypress
the sun is looking away –
vague light leeches through the leaves,
heat does not penetrate the shadows.
Could there be a blessing –
warmth or a cushion of grass?
The sun casts an empty halo
around an early moon.
The moon too is vague and cold
but it does not look away,
it feels like a blessing;
the darkening sky, the hard stars,
blessing the day into night.