It is cold tonight
as I wander out onto the porch to gaze up at the crescent moon,
feet bare to the worn wood,
the rest of me snuggled in the wooly green sweater
I haven't worn in six months.
The stars stumble into the sky
from the slumber of the clouds and rain,
bright again and oblivious to my tired eyes and ragged emotions.
The Big Dipper, that glistening cup of comfort,
so easily discovered in the darkness.
It doesn't take much recognize the signs of the end of the season of growing.
The air alone is somehow thinner, ready to cut the threads that weave together
hope and ambition and leave me wanting to sleep more
curled in blankets and scarves with sweet, creamy tea.
In the morning, I won't be surprised if the frost takes the flowers from me,
greedy and violent like a child stolen from her bed in the night in a fairy tale.
I am grieving already
and have bulbs waiting in the basement
ready to tuck into the earth once the cosmos,
Black Eyed Susan, and even the asters are gone.
The secret society of women into which I was born;
mother and all her sisters,
each fall tenderly planting hidden life
in the nearly frozen ground,
each will gather in the twilight
from North Dakota to Vermont
and imagine the spring equinox
and the green tips of life returning to us
after so many losses.
If we only consider frost
we will lose everything;
go mad for the search for the color
at the edge of a daffodil petal.
Instead we kneel on the cold ground
and pray for more.
