Decline

Stingy clouds that merely dripped now and then to speckle the pavement cloaked the year's last Sunday. Though the day was gray, the back lawn is green again, thanks to recent rain and snow. It has exchanged colors with the trumpet vine, now brown, which tops the sagging fence. No shards of light reached the bare oaks or shaggy ponderosas all afternoon, but a momentary flaring at their tops came with evening, when the descending sun briefly escaped the sky's gray cap. The waxing moon had no such luck, and its skinny rind never penetrated the clouds. Now the rumpled sky is starless, and the cold air is still. Winter hangs around doing nothing. We have that in common.

( Sunday Verse )