Here is where I grew upwards; Here is where my roots grow down

My dad lit a woodfire
before going to bed.
In the sighing quiet
of the night, I decided to
let the dog in to warm himself
while I read by the
living light of a treestump
that had sprouted a hundred years
before I was born.

I stepped outside the box
of the home I grew up in
to call the dog in a whisper.

My body weight packed the gray snow
as I waded away
from the orange-lit windows.
Farther and farther
with quivering skin.
My breath was the only fog
between me and the black, black
distance of the extinct starlight.

I heard every whisper
uttered by the bare purple lilac branches,
the waist-length grass of the field
burdened with snow,
the centenarian cellar deep below.

My dog approached me, having heard
my footsteps.
He watched me for a moment,
both of us sharing the same
cold air tonight,
both of us revolving
around the sun.

I smile and he trots over,
wagging his black tail against my thigh.
I want to stay out here and do
as dogs do,
running from field to field,
sniffing low to the ground
and finding the woods behind
the house an alien planet
with a familiar geography.

But I’m cold. I will never
live here and my dog’s
brown eyes wait for me to move.
We were both born
into an old world,
yet you can hardly
call us children.
How did we begin
to call this place ours?