Winter is cherry pie  /  lugubriousness  /  The Swell Season  /  giddily soft blankets /  hoppy, deep-flavored beer that absorbs you  /  the crunch of grass  /  the melancholy ponds after the snow melts, half ice, half water rippling in wind  /  snow fields in bumpy quilted patches  /  hardened yellow grasses peeking up in bunches  /  a night that feels darker safer calmer and for all of its cold and persistence, kinder  /  a heavy-hanging blue in the mornings which gives you an old, reflective, late night feeling at 7 a.m  /  the extra sharpness of coffee, working harder to get at you, massaging the dreamier synapses of a winter body  /  the bite of wind on faces  /  the chapped feel of faint red apples forming on cheeks  /  the numbness of toes, running  /  the numbness that gives way to a tingling, protective warmth  /  the emptiness of road and landscape  /  the bare trees with the clackety branches  /  the moon set against the curved black layers of sky at 7 p.m  /  the twisted branches on frozen leaves  /  the way hands wrap around cups of warm drinks, clutching them with intertwined fingers  /  the rooted serenity of reading New Yorkers in front of the fire  /  the packed-in snug feeling of being swaddled in so many jackets and scarves  /  the austere blue of dusk that darkens gradually over  the course of hours, fading towards midnight in the faintest shades like a slow-drying watercolor.

My parents on the couch in the very early morning, whispering to one another over cups of coffee in the dark:

“I just want to sleep more in the winter.”

“That’s ok – sleep.  You need more sleep in the winter.”

“This fire is magical.  Watching it makes the winter so much better.”

The sip of coffee.  Clasping hands round the cup.

And the winter day rising sea-blue around them.