In the slight warmth of two clear days,
whatever of snow that lay thin against the stone steps
has melted away,
leaving a clear dark path in the moonlight
from the garage to the house.

I walk slowly,
careful of the thaw between,
the mush of green just above the still-frozen soil.

On the bank of the woods,
in the shadowed lee of last week’s wind
and in the drifting bends of earth
whose change will take more than a few degrees above freezing,
the wake of the storm still holds white,
bright in the night’s slight glow.

There is more of snow to come in this season of cold and shadows,
three days before the calendar’s winter begins.

I’ve come to think of the marking of seasons
as a sort of average,
an imposed structure generally right about things,
with the occasional blizzard a month early
or late,
and sometimes a week in January
when even in Nebraska, a thin jacket is plenty.

I like those days well enough, I reckon.
But I keep the coats handy until May.

I step across the last frozen stones,
open the back door,
welcoming the warmth that lives within,
that carries me through life’s
occasional sendings of cold
that cuts bare the bone of the soul.

H. Arnett
12/18/09