The full moon is a silver blur among the bare branches of my neighbor's big black walnut tree. And the cold clings. It's presently three degrees in the little northern city by the sea, with a wind chill of minus ten, and we're not forecast to get a break anytime soon.

I'm back to sleeping badly, but so it goes, so it goes. There are worse things in this world than lying awake and staring at the moon. At least it's Sunday: no one rushing through chores or out the door. Though I can't sleep, Tom is having no trouble, and that is a comfort to me. Young Charles prowls upstairs and down. The kitchen clock ticks. Remnants of heat sift from the registers.

I worked on a couple of poem drafts yesterday, read the books I needed to read. Midday T and I went for a cold walk through the cemetery. For dinner I breaded and sautéed pollock, steamed some mixed grains, made a sauce of yogurt, red onion, and capers, tossed julienned radishes and carrots in vinegar and salt and topped them with a pinch of the micro-lettuce I'd sprouted on the kitchen counter. Winter, winter, winter: how my eyes long for even a sprig of green.

I don't mean to complain. I love all seasons, I love the cold, I'm interested in it all . . . but at this time of year I do feel starved for color. Thank goodness for the vivid glow of carrots, pale lavender-rose of an Asian radish, flash of April in a lettuce sprout.