Call down
not winter’s cold
not winter’s dark
but winter’s palette
Light gray of shadows on snow
Medium gray of about-to-storm sky
Dark gray of the bones of sycamore trees
Yellow-brown beech leaves cloaking the trunk object
Pokeweed berries staining the snow object
Holly trees declaiming Christmas object
Cardinals getting caught object
to grays
not ambiguous but absolute
object
to grays
and lose
Light gray, the bleak landscape of heartbreak
Medium gray, the satisfaction at survival
Dark gray, the pleasure of repentance
(Words and photos by Sarah Hinlicky Wilson. This poem was first published in the Spring 2009 issue of Ruminate. It appeared there under the title “Shades of Gray,” but due to the subsequent publication of a certain horrifically popular book series—and I mean that in both senses of the term—I thought it wise to rename my poem here.)