Slow: Animal crossing

Just after we’ve communally stuffed and thanked,
the first sleet comes down in shanks
of dirty lambs’ wool, rude messy sheets,
slathering the cars we hunch in, hurrying
again, against some febrile deadline, dodging
the poor squiggling squirrel trying to shoot
across the heavy-metal trafficked road
that intersects his world.

He seems to have made it, tail on.
We may, too, make it home, untripped
this time by our own haste,
knowing in some dark artery
that the meal we need,
the company against the cold,
like the animals in the Ark,
are all waiting, like Advent,
inside the small rooms of the remaining
calendar, we pass through, one
by one.