Bitter

cold -- of the kind that turns my fingers red, numb, white (though gloved and stuffed into wool-lined pockets) and fingernails purple, the kind that makes me fumble when I try to press any button on my camera and dries my eyes straining to see anything clearly, even my own shadow, reddens my nose and cheeks, whips up my jeans and down my socks -- may slow me down, but doesn't stop me from a brisk walk and a look, especially a slightly cheering one on seeing more water in Lake Cheston but still depressing given the appearance of segmented hardened earth -- like quilt patches -- of once-mud-then-packed-dry-blocks under that water; then the pronounced shadows, the long shadows that slash the reddened grasses standing up to the teens and the icy winds, teaching me to surrender to weather and still walk, still see, then recover with tea and warm water and cats, always doing the smart thing: hunkering in their round beds.