My favorite kind of night
is in the midst of winter.

The sky is clearer than a lake
at dawn,
the lack of clouds has allowed
any sunny heat from the day
to drift away.

It is viciously cold,
the kind of cold that numbs your hands
and stings your face with the sky’s clarity.
On nights like this,
you can walk from river to river
and not see another person.

The world is crystallized in its place.
Nothing seems alive.
These nights carry the deepest silence I have known.