Cold Front

Cold Front

Just after sunrise you can see the line.
Straight smooth stratus clouds
riding over the lower layer:
dark rolling nimbus, edges torn, tattered
by the battering breath of the north wind.
A widening blue cuts the sky, clearing.

Perhaps it will rain again today.
They said it might return. Even now
the road is still dark with wet.

Later this week I'll lean, sore-armed,
on a well used rake, pulling cold air in,
silently cursing the stubboness of oak trees.

For now I walk,
an unneeded scarf kept to my throat
by the soon bitter wind. A change.
They say tonight it may snow.