Winter Morning, -13°

Waking up in longjohns and socks

under so many quilts your body hurts,

windows rattling in the winds

and puffs of snow sprinkling

the sill and the floor beneath—

you fire up the stove with dry cobs and oak,

lean into it and rub your hands,

your mind unsettled by the linoleum rug

which won’t lie still. When a squall hits broadside,

the rug rises, billows. You press a foot and pump it slowly,

feel it push back against your toes

too soft for something that cold,

spongy as moss beside a spring.

Pants and shirt now, then ham and red-eye gravy,

eggs, yesterday’s biscuits, 

coffee as hot as you can take it

while three feet away snow won’t melt.

Last fall’s venison in the freezer is warmer than this,

but you’re not that dead, not yet. There are chores out there,

and at the mill logs whose frozen hearts

will make a four-foot blade cut a crooked track.

Into as many layers as will fit.

Wrap a towel around your head,

another around your neck,

walk to the door. Beneath your feet

you feel the rug rippling

and you think of summer

and a field of clover

rising and falling, rising and falling,

and how every green and growing thing will die.

              © David Black, 2017

White clover in the meadow
Photo by Steve Daniels, UK
from Wikimedia Commons