After James Wright

Winter, I am walking alone.
This place is bare but for the fence posts.
Gray, splintered wood, smooth texture
when caressed the right way.
This hard earth meets each stride
with the sting of cold rejection.
My soles are thin with age.
Behind that line of ash and cypress
the sun is looking away,
vague light leeches through 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.