I Hear Dead Things

Morning is still sleeping, but I cannot.  I seem to be getting up before the sun regularly on these shorter than short days.  The full moon peeks behind high clouds and then ducks back taking the gaunt moving shadows with it.  I sit in a silent room sensing the quiet cold that has settled outside as I tuck the throw more tightly around my legs.  A simple sound could carry a mile on the thin crisp air out there.  Even the few lights on the river seem to twinkle so quietly, almost fearfully, with a silver white glow.

Suddenly, the house seems to take a quick and deep intake of breath as if bracing itself, and I hear the rattle of twigs and leaves beside windows, scraping across the porch, and clacking across the roof.  Just like boney fingers with long nails they tap as if testing to get in, reminding me they are spinning out there, in the waiting cold, flying against and over the house, scratching and biting their way through the woods, clattering and spinning chaotically.

Once the sun is up, they become nothing more than dancing debris, but now  in the dark they are dead things that move.


(I know...compared to the prior post...I am a little bi-polar.)