Winter

Lit Up — January’s Prompt: Winter

black, naked trees reach for indigo skies, their sleeping fingers scraping threaded clouds as arms bend and creak, groan and sway in brittle wind

stars scattered across the night, sometimes, sometimes the moon

her face, glowing against cobalt, until

she sleeps within gathering grey down

her hazy bed a thickening comfort of billowing folds,

holding back brilliant cold as the

tiny specks slowly cast down by winter’s hand

hiss and slip and whisper

of secrets,

falling