mitigate

There is that icy blue that arrives with the twilight, huddles in the horizon. That color that clings, bitter to the fingertips, cold to the touch. It lingers long past the dusk, pressing thorns through the delicacy of flesh. It burns well past any ash or ember, nuzzling in the corner where heaven holds court. It shines like the prettiest of teeth, radiates that most earnest of threats.

It is of a kin to the cold, this hour of dismal engines and hanging lights. The lush expanse of the unraveling air, the color of the drowning sun, these clipped and distant kisses we devour bones and all. Every kingdom witnessed in golden tatters, every shadow a draping of secret shells. The shuffled deck, the muffed deal, every card culled for some special cause. Winter another kind of burning, shedding heat and light.

We move into darkness, we ride the slow falling into night. We scuff and mutter, we scrape and plod. Wrapped in cloth, swaddled in our inherited bundles, we range and strive and ache. Wings take to the sky and shadows pour forth from every corner, and our work is never done. Seasons spin and days fly and there is never time enough. The color lingers before it leaves, leaving us with only words to cover all that we have lost.