We rise tangled in the warmth of one another to meet the moon of a new year. She hangs full-bellied above the field over us, quietly inviting us out into the winter wood.

We boil the kettles, feed the pups, slip into canvassed woolies- creature comforts to help us sit in cold moonlit council with animal family. In muted shades of brown we sit crouched in the forest in a shed stacked with hardwood to feed the winter stoves. We sit and warm our hands in one another’s and watch the wood stir awake. We listen to the language of the land holding us. 

The bared tree limbs sleepily sway and sing a skittering sunrise song. My eyes steady, fuzzy as they flicker dance across the soft greens and browns of the forest- a non-verbal dialogue with the hardwoods, frozen sumac, squirrels, a tiny finch parade. We sip a thermos of hot coffee, read Walt Whitman’s Sabbaths, you kiss the tip of my frozen nose awake. 

We walk, quietly as we can uphill to a small cabin to continue our conversation with the wood.