The First Gray Frost

The sound of the first frost whispers silent like the first gray hair which long ago, crept into my autumn ~ a chilling winter approaches, it crooned ~ i felt its sonorous breath as i wrapped my shawl tighter, shivering ~ and listened to the icy crisp winds speak of the season of my discontent now approaching. They spoke in brittle leaves - in the broken tick tocks of the frost-filled clock, and in the leaf-bare branches scratching at dusk's window ~~~~~~My breath became a ghost in the lamplight, curling like mists of omen-bound fog around the rim of my teacup.

🍂 The whispering sounds of autumn tipping into winter Verges into Leaf-laced rustling~~~Dry oak and sycamore leaves skitter across the pavement like frolicking spirits, their brittle edges spilling secrets to the wind. Each gust carries a different dialect - some sharp and urgent, others slow and mournful.

Twigs tap against each other in a slow, arrhythmic percussion, I see bones clinking in my autumn pouch. The trees, now stripped, creak softly as they shift their weight, preparing for sleep.

A solitary crow calls out from a rooftop, its voice rough and metallic ~ less a song, more a warning. It echoes across the chilled air, bouncing off stone and frost like a bell tolling for the season’s end

The wind has a new voice ~ No longer playful, it now speaks in a lower register. It moans through chimney flues, sighs under doorframes, and whistles through cracks with a voice like summer sung in reverse.

The crunch of boots on the first thin crust of ice ~ delicate, deliberate, like walking on glass. Each step is a punctuation mark in the quiet, a reminder that warmth is retreating.

The hearth murmurs. Inside, the fire crackles with a language of comfort - soft pops, gentle hisses, and the occasional sigh as logs settle into embers. It’s the sound of autumn taking refuge, warming its hands.

The silence between sounds is the most haunting ~ the pause ~ the breathless stillness between gusts, between crow calls, between footsteps. It’s a silence that feels sentient...watching, waiting, remembering.

The scent of woodsmoke and future longing , clung to the hem of my memory. I walked past the garden, now a grave for the riotous blooms of July - each petal a lost argument, each root a secret I buried too deep. The soil, stiff with frost, refused to remember my name.

The crow laughed from the rooftop,

its voice a rusted hinge swinging open

to a sky the color of frosty promises.

I felt the ache of old stories in my bones ~

the ones I never told,

the ones that told me.

Inside, the hearth flickered like a tired heart.

I fed it splinters of yesterday,

watched them curl into flame.

The wind pressed its face to the window,

taunting riddles in a frenzy of ice.

And I, wrapped in wool and wondering,

sipped the silence,

and waited for spring

to remember me.