Late December and an early snow has fallen on the cornfields. The stubble of the autumn harvest pierces the frozen ground; once golden shafts fractured like brittle bones fingering the earth, lace gloves of snow pulled ‘round wrists now drained of lifeblood. Beyond lies the burgundy barn flaming from the pallid landscape, a phoenix rising from the ashes, the only sign of life in the skeleton of this barren land when neither warmth nor light begin or end our days yet still we rise as a regiment to battle with the darkness. ~Rae Carpenter