winter

Winter is that boy your mother warned you about

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You know the one that can’t keep his hands off you. Always trying to touch your bare skin. Winter always goes too far; you can ask him to stop, but he never will.

 

He’s like that wild boy in high school that spent all his time trying to be cool. Every minute of every day, as if being cool was all that mattered.

 

 

Sure, he brings you lovely presents, like that a line of snow-covered trees glittering in the sun, pretty as a rhinestone bracelet. But he’s cold-hearted and time after time leaves you out in the cold.

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He likes to keep you guessing. One day he’ll warm up to you a bit, and the next day he’s standing in the street, shouting sleet at you, wearing that white muscle T-shirt and pushing you around.

 

He’ll chase you in and out of buildings; stalking you and moaning like a lovesick calf.

 

The relationship seemed so charming in the beginning when he would throw down that sparkly white carpet every time you walked out the door. For the holidays, he filled the sky with confetti, and you loved it. These last few months, though, you’ve been living in denial, telling yourself you can get used to it. But you can’t.

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Winter has a cold and bitter heart. He thinks that pinching your cheeks and fingertips so hard you almost cry is acceptable. If you’re not careful, you’ll start believing that his behavior is normal. That, my friend, is a slippery slope to slide down.

 

When you finally tell him to get lost, he will wait on your porch every morning and blast you when you walk out the door. And as if that weren’t enough harassment, at night he’ll come by and rattle your windows, huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf that he is.

 

Fool that you are, you think you can reason with him. You decide on a date that he will move on and out of your life. You get out your calendar and circle the day, embellishing it with flowers, hearts, and butterflies. (I really don’t know what your mother would say about that.)

 

Then on the very day marked for his departure, he shows up at your door, stomping his boots and flashing his icy blue eyes, as if to say, you are mine forever. Then he points to the trees he has decorated, and you have to slam the door shut because as mean as he is, he really is a great decorator.

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Me? I’m done with him. One of us has got to get out of town. If he’s not gone by the end of April, I’m going to have to leave or get some counseling.

 

Click the links to find the photographers: 
Snow pond   Firs   Rime

 

 

 

 

 

Winter rime and winter rhyme

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Winter’s minions stand their ground.

 

The book of days that hangs upon my wall told me more than a week ago that spring was here. I’m waiting, trying to believe it’s true.

 

Yes, the time of rime is now past, but winter lingers, reluctant to leave. Though the thermometer says it is 23 degrees this morning, winter sends its winds to swallow 5 degrees or more.

 

I brood. Rime, the ice that winter paints the trees with, rhymes with “rhyme.”

 

The time of rhyme is also past. Once upon a time, poets moved in measured footsteps, inviting us to join the verbal dance. Often when a line stopped and bowed its rhyme, the next one mirrored those same steps, matching the sound in kind. Some poets slanted rhymes or placed them inside, waltzing to a steady beat until the final curtsey.

 

These days we like our rhymes sung, whether hip-hop, pop, or rock. Our poems are free to wander, twirl, and spin. Free verse creates its own steps and feels no constraint to follow someone else’s choreography. It rhymes or not, according to its own interpretation of the dance.

 

I would like to rhyme and dance a poem, but I have two left feet. However, it doesn’t stop me from trying.

 

So, today, I’ll share a poem of winter’s end, written years ago for my children. I warn you now: should you cross beyond the yellow tape, you’ll wind up in a rhyme scene.

Rhyme Scene

                                    Winter

 

Sweet swift dreams buried lie,

Mourned with long and silver sighs

Winter bares his strength ice-cold,

Tyrant clothed in robe of snow.

 

None would even dare to try

Reason with those deathful eyes;

Piercing, chilling, large and small;

Well he knows we’re cowards all.

 

Oh so proud, he comes with foot

Booted.  And where once had stood

Tender creatures soft and green,

Sterile, barren world is seen.

 

Laughing with a blasting wind

Opens court, his reign begins.

Long he banquets, drinks the wine

Stolen from the summer vine.

 

Largely ‘neath his grey tent sky

Sated monarch, drunken lies

Sleeping.  Snores with white-cold breath;

All his subjects wait, in death.

 

Deep in dreams his lover spies,

Hoary kisses tantalize.

Then sound with laughing fingers cracks

His smooth white dream, still unhatched.

 

Would one dare disturb this king

Who exiled thousands born to sing;

Southern regions welcomed them

Feathered orphans, fled on wing.

 

Still the sound, gentle laughter,

Warmly wrapping ‘round the rafters;

Anger fills the tyrant’s breast,

“Halt!” he cries with frosty breath.

 

Comes a child with melting smile,

Skips and flowers multiply.

Smaller growing, puddle king,

Conquered by the barefoot Spring.

 

Melting minions.

Melting minions.

Winter’s night

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The shadows have been there all day, waiting for the light to slant. The world turns its back on the sun as the shadows tilt onto the ceiling above the kitchen lights.

 

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Twilight awakens my longing, lets it loose like a hungry hound, searching for a bone I buried somewhere long ago. I miss the ones who have left. I hunt for them along the trail of memories,  following a familiar path that leads to the river. Here as always, I lose their scent.

 

Evening washes the room gray. My eyes cannot adjust; details fade like memories. Darkness brings its own weariness. I wear it like a cloak or shroud. I am too tired to go further. I long to hibernate, to crawl inside the barren night, and sleep and sleep and sleep.

 

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I listen to the lullaby of dark; I am weary, friend.

Don’t stop.

But I must sleep away this night that seems to never end. My tears will drown me if I do not stop.

Don’t close your eyes.

Why? Just a bit of rest and I will start again.

There is no starting after that sleep.

How far until the light?

The weight of snow

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Snow laden pine

 

 

Today the snow fell.

 

 

The pine trees stood in the silence to catch the falling sky. Two crows watched, unaware or unconcerned. The pines had nowhere else to go. When their limbs grew tired, they laid their burdens down. Snow scattered on the ground, startling the crows.

 

 

The birch trees are bones picked clean by the wind. Summer’s silver leaves lost long ago.

 

 

I have never loved the trees more than now.

 

 

The snow knows something of letting go, words unspoken, worlds lost, vanishing hour by hour. I think a bush grew there; I can’t remember. My familiar path is gone. I am left with only memories.

 

 

The snow knows too much of death to make a sound. It writes without words — shows, but never tells. See, you will not drown in this white flood. Winter stills the water and commands it to sit at her feet. In spring, the water will move again, seeking the earth’s heart, flowing down, down into the River Lethe, drowning all your memories of this world.

 

 

The blue shades grow large. I watch them lumber across the yard into the night.

 

 

I promise myself I will not forget this day.

 

I’ve been mistaken before

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Have you ever read the book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat? Written in 1985 by neurologist Oliver Sacks, it describes some of the unusual brain disorders Dr. Sacks observed in his clinical practice.

Like many of you, at night I like to read myself a bedtime story before I go to sleep, and one night a few years ago, this was my chosen storybook. Right before I fell asleep, I read the chapter “The Dog Beneath the Skin,” a description of a medical student who takes a large amount of drugs and wakes up with a dog-like sense of smell. For a limited time, he can distinguish people just by smell and is overwhelmed by the multitude of odors around him.

Later that night, I woke up from a deep sleep because of my sheets. They had that fresh, crisp smell laundry has when you hang it outside on a clothesline. After burying my face in the delicious scent of the pillowcase, I fell back asleep. When I woke up, the smell was gone.

We didn’t have a dryer then, so I hung our clothes out to dry on the balcony. But I had laundered the sheets earlier in the week. They had a mid-week smell, nothing more.

I’ve never been able to figure out what happened. Was it the power of suggestion, a dream, or was my brain running some tests on my olfactory nerve and accidently woke me up?

Why did I think of Sacks’ book this morning? Winter showed up yesterday with lots of snow, and my husband just woke up and mistook me for the weather: gray and gloomy.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for the Weather