Good riddance, 2016

You won't be missed. 

40/52: rainbow

the rainbow bends low

we chase the horizon so -

only the lights go

38/52: the white earth

when I am speaking to ghosts
I prefer to be walking in the woods

and I prefer it to be in winter,
snow crunching beneath my boots

as I carry on the one-sided conversation
reliving with the dead

words that cannot be resurrected
arguments that cannot ever be won

I stand next to the frozen stream
knowing the ice is not thick enough to hold me

and I tell the ghosts enough for now!
and sometimes

sometimes

the wind takes them then

and I am left with only the white
white earth.

37/52: bone

There is little ice in the cracks and creases -
it is mid-December and the wind blows cold
over dead grass and leafless trees.
But not as cold as it could.

What is outside is not what is inside.
I feel winter's bony claw
tighten around my heart,
bone on muscle, jolting the rhythm

of all that is life
making the dark come sooner,
sooner than I thought.

36/52: waiting for a thing they do not want

Through my morning window
I see the trees standing black against the grey sky
naked and stark, and
I am looking for the metaphor for what this means.
They line up in the winter dawn
like Civil War soldiers waiting,
waiting for battle.

I imagine a bed roll over one shoulder
maybe a leaky canteen.
Hungry and tired.

There is no desire to move forward
no desire to move back.
They are just here
waiting.
Waiting for a thing they do not want.