Winter

Winter came on Hallowe’en that year
strong winds bringing in big weather.

I stood on the porch, smoking,
watching it roll above me,
serious, dark and scary
when you think about it.
It was the first time I realized fully
that ice could form in the bones,
that stranded travelers died sometimes
with tears frozen on their faces.

All that night I heard the wind
shrieking like departed souls
ripping through the branches of the trees.
It was the death of a season,
tearing the last colors away.
I moved my Shiva statue from the window frame
because it was dancing
and making me nervous.

In the morning, the world had become entirely white,
as if all the haunts in the region had danced
a wild game of tag and lost their sheets,
blanketing the newly dead land