Colder

When nothing feels good
like it should and there is
frost spreading out from
the center of the window
you can look and see
it walking through the tree line
past the lake up to the glass.
A moose with bleeding antlers
after fighting others getting in the way.
It rounds the corner and knocks
snow off the roof when it collides
with the side of the cabin
it isn’t afraid of.
It doesn’t know where it is going,
aside from rumors it picked up
from listening to cardinals
in the branches up above.
They say there’s a place
in my direction where it is possible
to open up the blinds
between the living and the long
departed dead.
It just wouldn’t leave its head
and so it pushed on through the powder
past my quiet little show
of pluming smoke out of a chimney
and some brown eyes looking out
at what approaches.
The pine trees are winter’s beard
and cast a shadow that bends
in time with the setting sun
which goes down earlier
the colder it becomes.