a time for wintering

(written December 12, 2008 at 6:00 pm)

The axe hangs by its cold handle on the wall.
Its steel blade honed to a sharp edge again.
Oak wood stacked autumns ago pops and crackles
aflame in the hearth we’ve made for keeping winter’s chill outside
in the suspenseful silent darkness that surrounds us.

We’ve made room enough to talk warmly about spring plans
and for singing smiling songs of summers past
when sleeveless sweats and sweet pleasures
were bared of flanneled and sober constraints.
We’ve gladly received the dispensation winter grants
for remembering why we live and love.

Enduring days of dimness, discomfort, and dormancy,
we’re keeping safe our kerneled hopes from winter’s discontents.
And when the light of day lengthens enough
for a season of new growth to begin propitiously,
we’ll sow these seeds, sacred to our resiliency,
trusting in the efficacy of their multiplying in summer
into an abundance we’ll gather in autumn.

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standing in the dirty snow

(written on Tuesday, February 22, 2005, in the early morning)

A shipment of coconut palms has just arrived.
The town planner in Parma, Ohio,
ordered them to end our wintry depression.
But is there unpaved ground for planting
the sunny warmed balls of roots
denied their delight in humid beds down South?
And has the cost of breaking shovel points
in spare patches of icy cold ground
been reckoned by the local politicians?
Nobody’s standing in the dirty snow
to notice the beginning of the end of our wintry despair.

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