No one is awake,
and the silence is so absolute
that you can hear the universe
rearrange itself
outside my window.

It is blue-gray
and a moth-eaten blanket of snow
barely covers everything.
The wind whips
whistles
whines
ROARS.

It is the bleak midwinter, and I the only thing alive.

I lift the blind
and the trees rise up like the petrified bodies
of so many crones from times past.
They dance a ballet with the windsong—
paying homage to the ashy blue sky.

The snow falls and is still falling
turning the world to something
no one will ever know.

How frightened were our ancestors
when this storm broke above them?
Did they think the sun had forsaken them?

Had it?

The wind stills.
The concert is over, at least for now.
I feel the sun begin, quietly, to rise.

A door closes downstairs,
and the day begins.