grey but beautiful

This isn't the time of year for glorious, full-throated
birdsong, halos of sunlight on a bright green lawn - I know that.
Right now, what matters is not getting more mud into the house,
resisting the catastrophe of a thunderstorm, knowing
how to feel your way in the dark when the lights go out.

This morning, crossing a damp road to the path into town,
it would have been easy to mourn the downed camellia
drowning in an opaque puddle. The playground, empty of toddlers,
might have seemed joyless, the definition of abandonment.
And the sky, with its monochrome detachment, begged for neither
sorrow nor astonishment.

Instead, the path lay before me like a grey
but beautiful suggestion, the simplicity of distance
between here and home. The single, unglamorous act of movement -
that's how I walked.