Winter nights can get lonely out in the country. Nights like tonight, when I feel and hear the wind outside picking at my house, roaring down the hill like an angry old man. It doesn’t seem like there will ever be enough wood to feed the fire, stay warm, keep the cold at bay. But from that feeling came this poem, lighting me up again.

fire and the light

wind steals the breath
heat and heart, from my home
pulling, pushing it’s weight
through the fine cracks
those wrinkles of time
crawling through old timbers
peeling away the cocoon
lathe and plaster sigh
give up, give way
give in to their ghosts
blowing across the fields
from the north, the east
heading ever onward, restless
chasing away fire, the light
towards the cold dark of evening