The simple phrase “mild winter” needs to be filed away with other hasty prepositions about life and love on the Great Plains. I was prepared to walk after work tonight but the wind chill is some smallish number below zero. I stayed in and whipped up a vegetable curry for my lunch for the next few days.
The Snow Moon is new tonight, finally earning her name this year. Whiteness lingering over the land makes the winter seem real, a final erasure of all that was once green and warm and fragrant. I’m sorry, summer, but your glass is finally empty.
I toast you tonight, you vernal beast, I drink to your glorious past!
Then I will return to nursing the Snow Moon across the February sky. I will continue to tread the holy ground between these two rivers with my hands free, my breath alive and my third eye open.