Winter, I am walking alone.
This place is bare but for the fence posts.
Gray, splintered wood, a smooth texture
when caressed in the right way.
The 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.