Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

 

Mornings are still dark when Ado and I get up and go for our first walk of the day. I see the moon move through its phases if the sky is clear. I watch the crows fly overhead, going from their nightly nesting ground to wherever it is they go for the day. I hear the hoot owls calling to one another. Rabbits zip to the shelter of hedges from openly eating in front yards under cover of darkness. The stillness of this time snuggles around me like a favorite sweatshirt pulled on that first cool morning after a long, hot, muggy summer. Speaking of yellow . . . During my walk home from the Coffeehouse last evening, after sitting for several hours with a friend, talking work and writing, my thoughts turned to how not long from now darkness will settle in by 5 pm. My excuse to pull on pj's and hunker down for the evening. One of my most favorite things to do, and it will last right up until April when I'm ready to shed the layers and get back out into the world again. The last f...

Awhile back, I posted about feeling the need to write poetry. That need hasn't let up, and I frankly don't know where it's coming from as I'm definitely not a poet. I am first and foremost a short fiction writer. Maybe what I'm feeling is just the need to write and it doesn't matter what form that writing takes. Whatever the case may be, this is the poem I've been working on. Night Ride Hushed voices drift on the dark, like the bobbing blink of a firefly first close to the grass then out of arm’s reach then back again. The heavy thunk of water bottles against their cages, the click of headlights switching on, illuminating the pebbled asphalt six feet ahead, signals go time. Under cover of darkness, the crunch of tires mingle with muted yawns and complaints of lingering sleepiness. Moving through quiet streets, I follow the red taillights of those in front,  the ones unafraid of that which  the darkness hides. W...