Winter’s arriving with a blast cold enough
to make headlines in the nation’s news.
The TV’s painted faces read the list of dire threats,
worry lines creasing their brows. Any one,
their manner implies, with any sense at all
will double check their provisions and hunker down,
even though Christmas is but three days away.
I zip up my jacket, put on my boots and gloves.
It’s the first full day of winter and I want to greet it
face to face. At the edge of the garden, I find
dried flowers and seedpods dancing in the breeze
on bleached stems, heedless of warnings or weather.
All they know is joy in the very fact of being, today,
as winter arrives, and Christmas is but three days away.