Winter Walks with My Dog

On a cold bright pre-Christmas morning

the sun is irresistible.

It draws us, we walk toward it as though into it,

although it blinds us white.

A luminous milk-spill running along the sidewalk.

It entices her: she stops and sniffs at a spot of bright,

as though she could lick it up or dig herself into it.

It skips along a bare branch, she thinks she sees a squirrel,

and she yells and leaps, but it’s only the light,

the truth and the illusion.

At bedtime our walks

feel somehow less cold,

as though the darkness protects us like a wrap.

The city street is quiet as a country cornfield,

only a lighted window here or there

offering a sense of comfort in the life it holds behind it.

We are strangers in an old tale,

wandering through a wood,

hoping to come on a candle in a cottage window.

A friendly hand, a meal, a warm bed.

She and I move faster at night; there are no squirrels to distract her;

only the occasional stop to sniff at a bare patch of ground.

A subliminal hum in the air

only seems to deepen the silence. Maybe traffic on a distant road

or generators from the school building

or a transformer on an electric pole.

A blue light far in the distance, a lighted wreath hanging on a fence.

The traffic signal blinks, red, red, red.

A silhouette walks around a corner; the dog goes alert

and gives a little whine. An interloper on our serenity.

The world is deep at this hour.

We turn back for home, at peace with the night and the season.

[[All images from MorgueFile]]