Winter Night

The cold hard moon is slowly rising, lighting the ancient forest up like it has for millennium past. Tonight the deer are restless, the bitter cold stirring them to life, they bolt past in threes and fours at a time down the rutted lane and I wonder how they stand this cold. I place another log on the fire. The animals are curled into a long winter’s night: minka the cat rolled into a small ball on the spooky chair, Byrd the dog sprawled next to me soft in the sofa but always ready. The Wolf Moon lighting up the Maury its banks now white with ice, returning the full moon’s glare, knowing tomorrow the white will edge even closer to choking her off. Most of all the old Virginia House standing sentry over All, holding her stories of lives written in every board and etched on each stair step. I wonder what stories they hold, who has come and gone before. Of wars and loves and secret romances, of death and life, of riches and waste. The circle once again has gone unbroken. I go outside, down the steps, leaving my footprints there as so many have before, bring in another cold log. And place it on the fire.