An Uninterrupted Weekend

Suddenly, the birds stop by like neighbours with frozen beards, huffing puffs of breath into the arctic air on the porch. They flit about, holding a hot blueberry pie, steam rising from the star cut crusted top. I walk to the door, reach for the handle and then decide, no, no visitors right now, not this weekend, not while the top of the lake is frozen and the coffee is about to finish steeping. Sometimes silence is louder in the winter, louder than in the city, louder than the birds of my mind, who I keep ushering South. Sometimes silence is so loud it makes my teeth hurt.