The weather she dictates
what life will be like,
good if planned,
miserable if denied.
I nervously watch the timberline
for the storm’s arrival
never sure if the man on tv
will get it right.
It’s onslaught can be deterred
by sudden southwest winds
making it miss our home
leaving us smiling, only hearing about it
on the news.
It can creep in, so subtle,
where it seems to come through
the trees like a North Sea fog.
In the morning I can see frost bursts on
my window in the shapes of firework explosions
backed by blue skies with no clouds or snow.
A high sits in the valley
telltale that the thermometer
will not display above zero today.
And the radiant heat makes smoke
rise from the crystals and they melt
against the glass.
But don’t let the vision of ice dying
fool you into stepping out without cover.
It’s bone chilling out there.
Then there are days
her wickedness wind blows,
no more like spews,
beautiful flakes into monstrous drifts
whose magnitude
blocks the screen door from opening
and hangs off the corner the cottage roof;
the expanse of the ice widget
seems to be suspended like magic
in the cold air.
Like a token of love,
the blizzard leaves ornate daggers
of ice that hang from the gutter's edge
and I smile and stare
at the lovely wonders the snow monster
formed.
The next morning, if sleep refuses to leave quickly,
I lay in bed hiding from the chill
outside my blanket
with no help from my canines who snuggle
deeper into my side
when my slight stir has reminded them
of the cold wake they face
for their morning business.
And it is that making us rise and hurry
to finish and return to our downy duvet.
But before that I click on the electric teapot
and I push up the thermometer dial
and grabbed clean socks
and am startled by the new email chime of my phone.
And I am up now
facing the cold morning with layers
upon layers of clothing until
both the furnace and my overheated body shred
and the daily game of applying
and unapplying has started for the day.
A miniscule mirco of a degree stands
between warmth and chill.
It is warming out
(it always does after a big snow)
but not warm enough yet.
After the toast is gone and only leaves
lay left in my teacup, the sun hits its
peak and mine.
The warmth turns hot as summer visits
if only for an hour or two
and we position ourselves to full benefit.
Cat on a windowsill,
dogs huddled against the slider glass
and I, I have pulled my makeshift desk
(mostly known as the dining table)
into the direct light as I work
and rotate chairs as the sun moves his spotlight
down from Pyramid Mountain southwestward
to Pike’s Peak.
And he’s gone,
gone behind the mountain.
The lack of it’s brightness
happens all too early these days.
It’s departure leaves a blankness,
lacking structure and composition,
to the sky above.
The color blue slowly being evaporated
and it’s saddening as
the mind doesn’t like the night
for more hours than not
and neither does the heart.
I put off until the dusk of dusk to
finally close the homemade curtains
giving invitation to the impending blackness
to sit outside my window
and taunt me
and awaken my worries of significance
or, sometimes, lack thereof.
This is when I decide upon my
winter night’s distraction
before I get swallowed by the dark cold.
A book, a streamed movie,
perhaps dominoes at the neighbors?
Diversions are pure gold around here
in these months.
As the evening closes,
I see my yellow lit lamp invades the black
outside my window
and, as I look out, I realize the night
has illuminated me.
I step back, unsettled, quickly seeking
the warm safety of my bed.
The prayers I whisper every night
to keep me alive, body and soul, fall silent
to slumber
and the chilled child soon awakens
into a mountain pilgrim upon hearing
the early chinook winds rustle
the tops of the pines
and seeing the angle of the north moving sun
shining longer.
Winter’s visit will come to an end
and it will seem a fond drama
we can brag that we endured.
