Orion Risen:

In the frigid, still air

A breath of golden sun

Falls upon their russet chests,

Fluffed feathered robins sit,

Pensive and apprehensive,

Carefully absorbing the last

Of the fleeting light and imagined warmth,

Awaiting the cold descent into night.

In the oak’s stark branches,

Hung like soft ornaments against the empty blue sky,

Voicing a few final, plaintive chirps,

Dozens of tiny avian hearts coursing hot blood,

The resigned thrushes fall silent

And fade into the heavy night

As faithful Sirius blazes awake at Orion’s feet.

In the hour before dawn the old moon

Breaks from the cover of the black fir boughs,

Speaks wordlessly to the hard, frost strewn ground,

Glistening crystals of shattered moon glow,

A fierce mute beauty,

Barren, wormless, unpeckably severe.