When the shutters are down
the outside work is pleasanter
even when fingers out of the mitts
go numb on the hammer;
the boathouse whispered with
ice-splinters and slush when I fetched the ladder.
We’ll have to deal with the chimney
before we can warm the place up
inside, and then the cleaning out and sweeping up
will be dirty jobs before it’s safe
to light the kindling, inside.
After the shutters are up
let’s build a fire
out here: there’s wood
under the cottage; we can
open the thermos and eat our lunch
before we tackle the rest?
It’s pleasurable outside.
Being inside will be good when we’re
in and out all the time. It can be cosy
when rain is drumming the roof — but that
fireplace sometimes smokes.
In mid-July
it’s stifling under the shingles
even after a midnight swim.
On such a night it is pleasanter
under the stars, outside.
We’ve never been here when it’s
outside only wherever you might
need to be to do
whatever needed doing —
after the local wood-and-ice fellow who
helps us has cleared the roof from a heavy snow
and left again.
Then would it still be
better outside alone, only outside?