Dawn

She comes into the room while it is still dark, 4-year-old bare feet tip-toeing across 150-year-old wood boards and crawling up into the little nook formed by my half-sleeping body. As dawn stretches across the river, we watch the snowflakes start to fall, more and more until they cover the ground and blind the view of the old cemetery. I make a large pot of coffee and take out the sourdough rising in a cold stairwell; how mornings in the country move at different speeds. 

Later, at my desk, staring straight into the appearing sun, I flip through piles of paper to remember the year that past, try to build a new one ahead. Eventually, every memory fades into objects of our illusion, isn't this life so strange? I wanted you to be the one thing I never forgot, but now I can no longer trust my hazy ideas of what you were. I dream such strange dreams here in the country, perhaps it is no different. 

All years end, eventually. 

This, too, shall pass.