The wind blusters.
The clouds are gray.
I shiver in my coat,
yank on my hat,
wish I'd thought to bring a scarf.
The mittens I wear are mismatched
pink and white
and belong to one
(perhaps both)
of my daughters.
The dog,
I notice,
has chewed a hole
into one thumb.
I step into the woods,
head for the creek.
The water has risen in the rain.
I toe across flat and mossy rocks
carefully,
tentatively,
trying to keep my feet dry.
I pass the bridge.
The owl's nest.
The fallen tree.
And emerge.
No fishermen are at the lake
today: The icy wind has chased them
away,
empty bait containers,
a forgotten lure
the only evidence that
they were here a day ago.
The pair of ducks is gone as well,
the widening v they cut into
the calm and
still water ripped and rippled away
by the wind.
The heron, too, has disappeared,
the bird with two grey feathers
missing
from its left wing.
Sentenced to flights
short and low, his feet skirt the
trees as he passes
overhead.
Today, I round the lake
alone.
Grateful for the sudden
appearance of the sun that
warms my back,
reminding me of
hot mugs of tea
and the soup I have
simmering on the stove,
a mishmash of things left over,
unedited words
strung together
and stirred
and bubbled
in hopes that they'll collaborate and
decide to coalesce
into something
of meaning.
This was written for this week's
Write at the Merge prompt: "The third day comes a killing frost." ~William Shakespeare
Kelly Garriott Waite on Google+
Labels: Creative non-fiction, poetry, Write at the Merge