and so it begins

Hark!

You awaken in me a jolt of remembrance, of recall of chillier times. The seasons change and each trailing moment of them shakes my memory clean like an etch-a-sketch. But the traces are still there. I know your sound. I know it well. Feelings and memories, some pleasant, some not, come rushing back to me. You emit a hiss but instead of wrath, i taste steam and warmth. You trigger in me a surge of gratitude for you seem to declare your presence on the brink of intolerable frigidity. gratitude boils inside and I smile as i, in that first sudden moment, that sliver of a second, i jump at your sputter. So long it's been since I last heard you mutter. You've sat here dormant, waiting, existing as decoration. But now you breathe life for purpose. We're in this together, me and you. We wait out the winter together. My old pal, my friend. My radiator.