there is a time to keep,
and a time to throw away:
theatre programs
ticket stubs
dead plants
math tests
All articles filed in january
foreliving
in frozen january
i catch myself
longing for spring

a gift from sunny florida
every year at Christmas
my grandfather’s sister
sends him a box of oranges
from Florida — sometimes
grapefruits, too, which he
prepares for us of a morning
with an expert hand

the place in the pines
on a solitary ramble through the woods
i met a path i had not seen before

weather advisory
the TV weatherman
is probably telling us
not to get excited

new wonders
that winter was one of walking
of stalking the sunset’s glow
to the western road and then
watching the fire fade from the treetops
before shrugging home in the dusk

sturm und drang
all monday the fog hung heavy in the air
as if to say the new year had arrived
but no one was quite ready to face it

dreaming
i woke to the scent of petrichor —
that dust-on-the-rain smell
that always makes my heart
ache for spring

bared
in winter the trees
show their secrets

for the keeping
i found our younger selves today tucked away
in a box in a corner of the basement,
the you of then not even ten years older
than the me of now.