The year you died the rain fell frozen in weeping sheets
Tag: winter
This morning at the farms along the road
Twelve wild turkeys on their barnyard tour lumber from the woods
This hush
Late-winter evening, a light snow, ...
Ice cracks across sloughs
A late-winter haiku
but on the trees
Snow falls heavy, thick, but on the trees pink buds, tiny, wait ~~~
Five Reasons to Love the Long Nights of Winter
This poem is one I wrote maybe a decade ago, but it still expresses something important to me about the beauty, peace, and comfort of this time of year.
After a bright afternoon’s quickening light
To be cradled by dusk,
Its slowly sit-down darkening
To contemplate the softening outline of the old cat
Curled warm on your grey-trousered lap
To watch the women and men with briefcases and backpacks
Walk from the bus toward darkened houses
To see a glow appear here or there and know
The tired homecomings have begun
To unravel the mysteries of your heart
That can only be glimpsed when the busy sun
Pulls up its thick shadows
And the arms of the evening encompass all
____________________
Ark
All night the wind filled with snow howls against our walls. What happens to the animals, or people still outside I do not know. Small ship on a vast ocean our house sails alone through the gale. Carries us fretting to the borders of morning, the furnace and the radio land ahoy. ~~~
One by one,
One by one, winter lifts its long fingers from the deep freeze where they have grown, collecting crystals month by month with its diamond file sharpens them precisely then slips out to test an edge on the skin of our necks and back it goes sitting in the shimmering dark wearing the glimmer of a … Continue reading One by one,
Rhyming couplets for unmatched snowflakes
Snow and snow is all I know It comes and stays and doesn't go It bundles me in peace and calm The days so short the dark nights long We play a bit and rest much more Our weary bodies we restore Snow and snow I'm glad to know It's not yet time for you … Continue reading Rhyming couplets for unmatched snowflakes
Life’s little brown jobs
I love being at home. It's not that anything remarkable happens there. It's that a succession of unremarkable moments, when truly inhabited, turn out to be quite beautiful. When I have time around my actions to feel the rhythm of the day unfolding, I also have time to observe the details of my life in … Continue reading Life’s little brown jobs