Winter Light
What is it about this late afternoon light
in December, with its absolute stillness,
its blues, its few browns, its deep evergreen
greens and its scattered patches of white,
that somehow seems to know it’s a Sunday,
this light that’s come far, low over the fields,
now at rest, bright in the treetops, with no
ambition to reach any farther into the day.
Soon, in the silvery dusk, it will gather
some shadows about it and leave. We’ll be
able to see it then, paused on the horizon,
warming its hands at a bonfire of clouds.