Wet and Cold

It had rained all night. When I left home for work 

this morning, the misted rain blew against my face. 

Downtown, the buildings were wrapped in shawls of low clouds.

The bus, full of people, crept towards our office. 

We slowly disgorged ourselves to go into the building, 

a small sodden group of people, hating the short journey

to the warmth we wanted. It was cold, but tolerable. 

Within the next few hours, the snows came, 

not in pretty fluff, but mixed into the rain, pushed along

by gusts of wind. What was tolerable this morning

had turned pretty miserable by late afternoon.

Even as we talked and joked among ourselves, my coworkers

and I each turned inward against the cold, thinking 

towards the warmth we'd find at home; 

our own little inner fires burning away 

the cold rain in our faces.

A Crooked Journey

On an unseasonably warm afternoon, the low wooden fence 

zig-zags through the woods, imitating the path of 

the creek as it twists it's way to the river.

It's late autumn and the leaves have fallen from the trees, 

leaving them bare against the leaden sky. 

The wooden shed has been left to the weather as well, 

it's color fading to gray, returning to the color 

of the bare trees it came from.