Winter Morning
Today I watched the barn chores being done from bed
white drifts around worn clapboards,
geese trapped in flight at the roof peak pointing east,
Two cats creating dizzying paths before the fading white sliding doors,
a dance drenched in winter sunlight.
My man appeared with two red buckets, hunched in barn jacket
and disappeared into the dark door,
where seconds later first one pig head, then another poked into crisp blue dawn,
a small comedy played out in the square of light and I laughed,
covers tucked around my chin, for the goodness of the show.
First one brown, white and golden goat strode into the sunlight
to stand before the hay feeder,
sea of white accentuating her winter coat,
then another,
then three together,
moving from sleep into the sunshine,
the cold already a memory to them, spring already in their hearts,
and for a moment I could see the scene multiplied, the white all gone,
their small awkward kids leaping alongside their mothers into June light,
the man wearing only a t-shirt,
blue buckets in strong tan hands,
striding slowly to and from the morning barn.
green grass cut, birch bark and willow filling the air
just outside my door yet months away.
A rooster called in the near distance,
hens clucked beneath my window,
and suddenly the once overwhelming winter cold
was no match for my desire.
The painted scene
beyond my window
too warm for covers.
I was awake.
To enjoy a winter parade of goats through snow, click here!