this picture

I'm only sorry I cannot take
and share this picture

of tree top frosted
in snow and light

framed in the office window.

snow is magic

.

I will know I am too old 

the day snow stops 

seeming magical to me.

.

Winter Wound

The tree outside the corner of the building, trapped in an acute angle of ugly 80s architecture, was thriving.  I admired the close-up view of its limbs in all seasons, this most recent season spread with snow.  It must have been too close for some because one day I passed and saw the bright, raw wounds of hacked-off limbs now more distant than before and fully bereft of snow.  And I told myself I couldn't start crying in the hallway at work even if I felt like someone had just callously and with business-like efficiency taken a knife to a friend of mine.  It must have been scratching the glass or pounding on it right next to that lady in the corner's ear. It wasn't like they'd cut us on purpose, fully knowing.  They probably didn't even think of it, didn't see it that way, didn't know how much it would hurt us.  They didn't know, I told myself, wiped my eyes, sniffed, and started limping a little more slowly to my next meeting.

driving in a winter wonderland . . .

when it comes to driving
walking in a winter wonderland
is better

not quite a snowpocalypse

branches recoil
blobs of snow plop
I watch from the window
and turn on the Christmas lights
again

wind advisory

wind rattles the vents
temperature sinking fast
trees whip in the gusts

tonight I pray
for those outside tonight
may you find warmth

Isn't it too cold for snow?

the sky is that eerie dark
red-purple like the bruise on
a badly sprained ankle,

it is snowing that huge,
clumpy, plastic, synthetic,
fake-looking snow like
that diorama of Canada
I did with spray globbed
on and looking terrible

but sparkling like
diamonds chips
in the right light