the blue muse

It’s that time of year, the holiday decorations are going up, everywhere I look there are twinkling lights and sparkles and, with just-perfect timing, snow.

Yesterday I decorated the inside of my house
while nature decorated the outside.

Dancing snowflakes flitted through a lazy breeze, slowly drifting down
in grays and blues that shifted into white on beds of snow.

I walked to my mailbox late last night and I could see everything
as if it were dusk and not almost midnight. All that snow
mirrored by the sky, lighting my way through the cold.

Jack Frost painted my windows while I slept.

The scenery changed in my dreams.

Soon, I will be dreaming of green, because I will miss it.

Soon, I will start buying flowers every week.

Soon, I will grow tired of the cold and wish to feel the sun on my back.

But before that I will enjoy the sparkling lights
and the scent of pine and cozy fires that dance to the carols I play
as I fill the house with pretty things and love and gratitude and giving.

Soon there will be The Cookie Marathon.

And The Wrapping Marathon.

And The Card Writing Marathon.

But this morning there is this icicle outside my bedroom window,
reflecting the branches it hangs from like lace,

reminding me to stop every so often
and breathe in stillness.