Night Words

Night words are moving through these days, the language I most hesitate to speak; in late and early hours, when the dark is weak, I feel the new frost find its oldest ways. The stillness is miraculous -- a speech composed of water and chill, except when frosted leaves explode where I have stepped, the silence surging just beyond my reach. My dialogue is with myself, past dread of cold, or falling leaves, or narrowing days; but falling into silence in the ways of frost, I never know what I have said.