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Winter Barters

Chopped wood brings soup to boil.
Hungry nights bait steel eyed traps.
Evening light tugs at velvet shadows.
Summer poems travel under woolen wraps.

Frosty panes obscure coy pleasures.
Sizzling onions infuse a kitchen’s bouquet.
Gray days savor old love letters.
Rusted fenders feed a salted way.

Simple soups honor last summer’s labor
Razored winds chap purple lips.
Barren snow banks beget spring flowers
Arctic nights hang with shimmering slips.

Cluttered coat pegs announce new company.
Comatose hound runs in his sleep.
Sappy boughs pop a fiery chorus.
Stealth rodents cruise with nary a peep.

Winter barters settle around us,
shuffling softly as a saffroned nun.
We strike the bargains to inspire
that lackadaisical solstice sun.

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