The Small Warmth of the Sun

Billy had gone when the poplars started to bloom, and when they did the last thing he was doing was lying in the winter dead grasses of the hydro cut between the dogs and the dogs laid there with him, Dublin asleep against Billy’s thigh and Maggie at a small distance watching ravens against the azure sky overhead, and then watching a runner coming and passing along the cut, and then watching the tree tops flagging in the wind that sometimes carried itself to the ground where the three of them laid, and it was a cold wind out of the mountains that was made colder against the small warmth of the sun.