Nature's longest night. The Winter Solstice. The first day of winter here was lovely, clear and warm and perfect. But the night is long and I can not stay in bed with the torment of winter faeries any longer. It is colder and I am alone. Winter's first night and I am awake. No dreams of what has been left undone, what I will not do, this way. Just me here with a cat, books, pictures. I know a place where a young boy sleeps under big warm blankets excitedly dreaming of winter's youth.
Winter
ReplyDeleteThe red bird shocks
a tree finger
prick of blood against the gray
landscape. I must put this hate
into Winter's tomb.
I await the snow
now falling
on some distant keystone
its perfection radiant. Dead Beauty:
Ophelia in the river
St. Theresa of Avila frozen
in rapture.
How is this
the warm body longing
for such an icy encounter? Two angels
and a stone birdbath
the Greek key design in a circle
all three toppled over. The evergreens.
I dream of a Pennsylvania, the farmhouse
my legs cut at the ankles by the frigid stream
fern fossils in my hand and a few yards away
the deer
neck bent low
sipping.
Good stuff. I'm going to have to try much harder.
ReplyDelete