November Fades

Green blades stretch through the snow, arms in the air, surrendering, submitting to the inevitable. 

Seasons shift silently, leisurely. November fades to winter’s will, like chilled wisps of smoke twisting in late autumn air; the sun becomes a stranger and the moon bathes in exquisitely long nights. 

We curl in inky shadows, hibernating, assured that eternity will last just a brief time.

Five months of midnight, blindfolded, those blades of green will sleep, buried alive under a compressed canopy of white. 

But the earth turns, the canopy dissolves with the trickle of spring and the blades raise their arms in triumph. 

The circle is complete.