January 28

Awake with no recollection of sleeping.

Stench of creosote tells me that the old wood stove snuffed it again during the night.

'Pat pat pat' of large wet snowflakes outside the window,
snap and pop of tree limbs,
violent separation,
sap freezes and expands,
pressure builds at the base of the limb,
and 'POP!!!' off it shoots,
raining gobbets of snow,
shards of ice flitting anonymously into the pre-dawn gloom,
sailing without ceremony into the rolling crushed glass tide.

You once told me that there can be no lasting peace in this world.

Gone now to seek peace elsewhere,
separated by miles and memories,
and the fleeting precious time.

Chasing ghosts and hunting memories in a dawn of curling winter mist.