Day. Night.

Day.
Blue-grey skies swept with striated,
pleated braids of cloud.
Bitter wind sweeping across the plains,
dashing itself against tall cold edifices of stone.
The sound of nothing rushing furious across the lakes.

Night.
Stars, masked by a haze of moisture.
Moon wreathed in a halo of thin cloud.
Streaks of white illumined by pale reflections of flame.
Obscurity.

Day.
What would be called a gentle breeze
but for the rain gently seeping from the heavens.
A long day,
when hearth calls and book yearns to be read -
but neither can be answered.
The scent of clear.

Night.
Unceasing soaking.
Runoff: the soil too full to hold another drop.
Coursing streams,
invisible under the lightless sky,
dig furrows in the earth,
swell banks to overflowing.
Hints of translucence tantalize but never materialize.

Day.
A gradual,
inconsistent clearing of the heavens.
Tattered curtains tugged hither and thither by the cross-wise gales that bluster across the earth,
gray smudges on the corners of them,
the indigo canvas they conceal blurred by a higher layer still.

Night.
The orbs in their stately arcs glimmer alone:
sharp points of night -
of light -
of night alone.
Occasional spots of darkness mark the final passing of yestereve's quiet storm.
The wind is falling,
dying.

Day.
Blue skies,
golden sun.
Warmth soaking through the air and the ground.
Puddles.
The smell of the color green.
Sweet breezes tugging at the still brown blades of grass.
The first locus blossoms of the year.

Night.
Stars!
Oh glorious!
Filling the sky,
sweeping grandeur,
singing sweet a song of majesty.
Yearning.
Tranquility.
Peace.
Stillness.
Awe,
and wonder,
and reverence,
mixing one marvelous tangled skein of emotion.
For all that...
quiet.

Day.
A glorious surge of warmth,
a land that is moist but no longer damp,
trees lifting their boughs up as if in some exultant praise.
The faintest hint of a breeze stirring their still dead leaves,
the air apromising the final passing of those leaves and the coming of their children.

Night.
Cooling.
Temperatures fall below comfort,
promising another swift change in season.
Still and silent but somehow not quiet.
Tritely:
the calm before the storm?

Day.
It rises again,
unvanquished:
that great titanic sprite of the air,
leaguing with the dryads.
A downpour is coming.

Night.
A downpour is come.
Tumult:
flame and water and thunderous sound.
Violence from on high.
The earth is not yet recovered from the cleansing of days before.
Floods:
turgid rushes of power sweeping away all in its path.
Passersby beware.

Day.
Gray and blue and gray and blue:
like night and day,
but ash and water in their stead.
Cold,
penetrating to the deeps.
Ice crackles on the tops of small ponds left by the downpour of night last.

Night.
Clouds again,
the heavens swept bare of starry light or moon.
Chill and bitter breath a hint of the day to come.
No thunder,
nor falling ice;
no fanfare,
nor proclamation:
just a promise of snow to come.

Day.
Promised snow uncome.
Gray skies cold and silent,
speaking no word save the wind.
Why silent?
Why barren?
Why bare?
Why not the white wonder?

Night.
The faintest frost across the grass and soil.
The lightest touch of snow across the ground.
The sweep of stars across the sky.
The tug of wind across the trees.
The glow of moon across the lakes.
The taste of spring to come across the week.

And it was good.