Fresh snow half-squeaks, half-crunches underfoot. There ought to be a word for that creaking snowy sound. It’s that type of snow, pillowy looking but dense. Good snowball making snow.  This morning, it sticks to everything: every branch and every branch of a branch. The rest of the world feels dampened but bright.

Muted sun mixes with winter grays. A morning chill lingers in the lungs. Out past the line of trees near the slate blue house, a pair of squirrels bob and weave through a carpet of pine needles and fallen leaves. They race up a crooked tree. Watching, my coffee is getting cold.   

Through the passenger-side window, the couple in the gold Cadillac hands me a Ziploc baggie of dog treats. They tell me about block parties scheduled for June and we talk about the weather. Only later do I think how this might have looked to a concerned neighbor peering from behind the blinds.

Strong winds rattle a panel of corrugated steel stored on the side of my neighbor’s shed. It lifts and settles, lifts and settles. The trash cans have been tipped over, flags flap and snap. A child’s chair, bright blue and plastic, tumbles tumbles across a yard. The day fills with minor disruptions.

This liver of a sky and the rains it brings regrows every day – our punishment for two days of stolen fire sunlight long receded. Welcome to the hours of diminishment. Hours that feel like a waiting line at the DMV in a strip mall off a highway in New Jersey. Institutionally dull.

The blood oranges, shrunken and hardened in the blue bowl, don’t ask for my attention. They don’t shrink from my gaze. They don’t fake displays of modesty in their aging. It’s as if they’re resigned to whatever comes next. They’re souring on the inside.  Nearby, a bag of mandarins shines in waiting.

This deserves more than fifty-two words. I met a disturbed woman and her friend at the bar. We talked. At times, she thought she was being excluded from the conversation – believed I was talking to the friend because he’s a black man and she’s easily ignored. More than once, she mentioned suicide.

Sunlight through the picture window warms my shoulder, warms my face. Seventy-five pounds of dog climbs the cushions behind me, wedging himself here and nudging his way there. He settles half on the sofa back and half on my hip and flank.  Two sleepy dogs heaped in a patch of afternoon sun.

Yellow sunlight layers over the green grass and bushy needles on the towering pines. Half of every branch on the tiny maple glows in silvery iridescent strings. The red wheelbarrow turned on its side in the neighbor’s yard casts a shadow against the white shed. I’ve missed this morning light. Welcome back.