New Year's Winter Poem

And with a new year
The pages are dried in the sun
Remains of raindrop stained pages stick behind
But as you continue
Furthering your boarding ticket bookmark
Page by page
You leave behind the stained information you gathered
And collect anew
A cold meadow is all that stays the same
An air that stings your nose
And stiffens your face and lips
And hollows your eyes
And softens your thoughts

A dock off the edge of a cabin
Down the dock, a perch
On that perch, a descending ladder
The latter descends into the meadow
A lake, seasons before, warm and bountiful
Now cold and curt
Mallards argue the drift with currents that fold into themselves
Seditious to what is outside their control
Resistant to new weather
Resistant to new tides
Only after, then migrating from frozen conditions
Frozen and forceful

As the new year comes
I adopt the mallards condition,
Who aviate to a new climate;
and I renew my boarding ticket.