Strong gales create blustery chills
Across the hardened dirt
And barren trees that only moments
Before were bursting with
The colors of ending life.
Dogs chewing on blocks of ice
Shattered with shovels by
Lazy workers looking to clear
Slick parking lots for cars
Look lazily about before growling
At anyone with fur lining
Atop their hooded jacket.
Old women shuffle and waddle
In their traditional clothes tied
With cloth belts of blinding hues
While old men smoke cigarettes
Whilst perched rusted fences
Meant to keep children
Out of the weeds and hidden manholes.
Specks of white flitter about,
Flirting with the naked eye and
Melt from the warmth of the blush
Before their powdery crunch graces
Broken sidewalks covered
In loose pebbles and stamping feet.
Darkness falls upon us more quickly
Than first imagined not so long ago,
Causing hasty retreats back to
Warm stoves with crackling wood,
Smoke wafting and resting
In the valley of the city creating
A luminescent glow around
Dancing electric lights of local stores.
The city now sleeps late,
And wakes even later,
Everyone now concealed
From gales, draped upon them are
The colors of ending life.
Composed 10/15/12
Author’s Note: I thought I’d add this one, a more recent composition, and take a break from my summer poetry to capture the transition to winter here in the city. I’ve never really lived in too many places with seasons before Korea in 2009, so this is a new experience for me, given the oft talked about harshness of Mongolian winter. It started snowing here in September, but my city has held out on full-on winter. It shall come soon enough.
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