How about winter?
Haven't hit winter yet.
It sometimes gets very cold where
I live as you can well imagine.
You could only imagine because it doesn't get cold here.
It can get very, very cold indeed.
It doesn't happen all the time.
You probably don't know very much about Washington.
There's two Washingtons.
There's the part that's wet that everybody's heard of.
And there's the part that's dry where I live.
Part that's wet doesn't get very cold.
But the parts that's dry does get very cold.
But it's normally in the 20s, something
like that about this time.
I think it was about 25 when I drove over to the airport.
However, every once in a while, it drops down to like 10 below.
Sometimes it stays there for a couple of days,
and sometimes it stays there for a couple of weeks.
It's rare when it stays there for a couple of weeks.
But it happens and it happened.
I was there.
You don't notice it is the funny thing.
When it gets cold below a certain point,
it's all the same.
Pay for not noticing it.
But you don't notice it.
It's dangerous that way.
And strange things happen.
Certain animals that aren't around come around.
I have deer that winter behind me.
But if it gets cold enough, other animals
come in behind them.
They're looking for graze.
This is about a cold period like that.
It's called cold snap.
It has three parts.
Two hours pass as the hawk rests,
I stare at his dark head turning above a breast so light.
It seems snagged in the branches.
Though, he is tired and the cold robs him, he sits erect.
The last time I look up, there is a tumbling of snow.
And on sheathing of wings, he bends and leaps to the air.
To the west, men lower their heads.
Bowl past one another.
Each dark form pulling its own weight through the city.
The Red Tails line is pure west.
Goodbye.
With some luck, I watched him sail with more the pigeon
and Jack rabbit escaped.
Skyward and Earth would like a pine.
Red tailed by the way is a kind of hawk.
I was far off and they were in the open.
So I took them for loose cattle, who
had nudged a gate back a bit.
Then kept just outside it lacking more courage.
If their fur seemed heavy, that was winter's doing.
Just as I started to turn, the head of one came up.
The neck was like a camel's.
Then the snow had poured seemed a cold sand.
The white clouds above it alive with running script.
The sky was salmon and blue.
There was mauve on the southern ridge.
Of course, I knew them.
All come down from the cold, hungry visitors.
My delight was not their purpose.
But it seemed unlikely they would take offense
at the warmth that coursed through me like raw whiskey.
I can walk out without the air igniting
my lungs with my color on my cheeks, not
bloods or the weathers.
I can stand in place refusing to stir and unconsciously
begin the fall into myself that is endless.
Until with the dare, I trek off into the hills
and hidden cliffs.
And the living animal in me has guided me back home.
Except it is not simply warm, but only warmer
as the hawks down and the Elks Ruff testify.
What has come is a break in a spell.
The cold, which is mild compared with what was
is enough to have killed whoever stood in it like a fool
and could or would not acknowledge this world.