Where the Grass Turns to Glass

The field wakes with a quiet that feels older than morning.

A thin frost drifts along the ground, settling over each blade of grass

until the entire meadow turns to a pale green shimmer,

a frozen veil catching the first faint rise of light.

***

I walk forward and the world answers in a delicate crack,

a soft bright sound like thin glass crossing into song.

Cold gathers at my boots and blooms upward.

The air holds that early-winter sweetness,

the scent of earth releasing its final warmth

before the season folds itself away.

***

Trees stand stripped of autumn’s color

yet they hold a kind of patient strength.

Their branches shape a lighter music,

a wind-born murmur that belongs only to this hinge of the year.

A crow rises, offers one firm call,

and the morning shifts.

Its shadow glides across the frozen grass

and breaks against the pale blue edges of dawn.

***

My hands burn with the first real sting of winter.

The taste of cold settles on my tongue,

clean as river stone,

steady as quiet snow learning how to fall.

Frost feathers cling to my laces.

A thin spiral of warmth curls from the ground

as if autumn exhales one last time

before giving the field away.

***

I pause in the center of the meadow.

Ice melts at my feet.

Light sharpens.

Every stiffened blade glitters in a bright trembling.

The rising sun catches the frost and turns the whole field luminous,

a wide white glow that feels like stepping through starlight.

For a breath the morning holds open,

and the world tilts from one season to the next

with a sound as small and perfect

as frost breaking to life.