Poetry Thursday - Winter Solstice

On the last evening of autumn

I lay upstairs on the guest bed 

on top of the gold and white quilt

that my grandmother

 made for me decades ago.

I look through the window

for a long while.

The horizon is glazed in autumn fire

though the earth is hidden by snow

and the maples are bare and shivering

beneath those glowing skies.

The longest night is falling;

the color bleeds from overhead

and spills into the lake.

The trees become only shadows

against a shadow sky

and I watch through the window

until my breath and I

are only shadows

 in the quiet upstairs room

on the last evening of autumn.