Winter Heat by Sierra Golden

Months after the neighbors piled their firewood
tall as the windows, wide as the house, and strung
brown plastic between the pine trees, protecting
their winter heat and blocking my view,

it snows, and in the morning, the tarp-tented
heaps of uncut logs appear suddenly beautiful.
Just a fine shake of flakes shining in the sun,
tree-drips pattering on plastic, and I am in love

for a moment, thinking, Is this how a poem happens?
One day I sit in bed past any reasonable hour,
and finally stop thinking about the neighbors
stealing my view, about everything needing doing

or undoing: the dishes, my taxes, the mess I made
with my exes. Seeing the sap-leaking stacks of wood
as if for the first time, some part of me collapses—
maybe my work ethic? Personal aesthetics?

Moral standards? Whatever it was, wherever it stood
inside me opens, letting in what little light there is.

Winter Heat

This is a poem that paints such a visual picture for us that it is hard not to imagine – the neighbor’s firewood stacked high and wide, covered in brown plastic, protecting / their winter heat and blocking my view. At this point, I sense a flicker of irritation, such as I might feel myself under the circumstances. And then it snows, and the uncut logs appear suddenly beautiful so that the poet pauses to say I am in love / for a moment, before asking this evocative question: Is this how a poem happens? Oh yes, this is how it happens!

She shifts from thinking about the neighbors / stealing my view, about everything needing doing / or undoing, these thoughts that snare us, pulling us down. Suddenly, the sap-leaking stacks of wood appear different as some part of me collapses. It is at this moment that she drops her defenses, her grumpiness, questioning her own work ethic, aesthetics, moral standards – whatever it was. Suddenly, wherever it stood / inside me opens, letting in what little light there is. A moment, a crack where the light gets in, showing her beauty without the resistance.

Have you ever had a poem-moment like that? I hope so; they are so precious.

On Safety by Nadine Pinede

When the storms of life
come bearing down
threatening to
lash you senseless,
seek shelter.
Find the warm
blanket you caress
like the felted fur
of your cat
curled before
a glowing hearth,
of breath that fills
both heart and earth.
Breathe.
There’s always time
to curse the darkness.
After the tears,
light a honeycomb candle
and heal your own sun.
The bridge
from sorrow to joy
may seem to vanish
in the flood,
but who says you
can’t join those
who cross over,
with a single
braided rope
of gratitude.

On Safety

The opening line of this poem by Nadine Pinede, is such a clear and comforting message: seek shelter from the inevitable storms of life. Take action, she is saying, because you can. Find that blanket that warms and soothes you. Even if you don’t have a cat, you can imagine the softness of fire-heated fur, the sensuous feel beneath your fingers.

Breathe, she says, that simple word I so often say to myself because I tend to forget. We can curse the darkness that appears in our lives, for a moment expressing our dissatisfaction. But then, she wants us to light a honeycomb candle to remind us of our own healing, the light we can choose to bring into the world.

It is true that the way from sorrow to joy may seem invisible to us, a bridge that may seem to vanish / in the flood. Yet she offers a lifeline for crossing over that dark river, by means of a single braided rope of gratitude. It is in the joining with others, with appreciation for how our thoughts and actions are woven together, that we remember how to find safety in the world.

Improvement by Danusha Laméris

The optometrist says my eyes
are getting better each year.
Soon he’ll have to lower my prescription.
What’s next? The light step I had at six?
All the gray hairs back to brown?
Skin taut as a drum?

My improved eyes and I
walked around town and celebrated.

We took in the letters
of the marquee, the individual leaves
filling out the branches of the sycamore,
an early moon.

So much goes downhill: our joints
wearing out with every mile,
the delicate folds of the eardrum
exhausted from years of listening.
I’m grateful for small victories.

The way the heart still beats time
in the cathedral of the ribs.

And the mind, watching its parade of thoughts
enter and leave, begins to see them
for what they are: jugglers, fire swallowers, acrobats
tossing their batons in the air.

Improvement

I like the light touch Laméris gives to being told her eyesight is improving, going further to imagine other extravagant possibilities – her original-coloured hair, the smooth unwrinkled skin of youth, perhaps the light step I had at six. These fanciful ideas don’t sound to me like a longing to return to younger years, simply a playful imagining.

As she walks about with her newly upgraded eyes, she takes in the individual leaves, a pale moon in the daylight sky, things we might easily miss without this fresh appreciation for what we can see with greater attention. So much goes downhill as she says, and as we all start to notice in time, the cushioning in our joints thinning, our ears exhausted from years of listening. Oh those delicate folds of the eardrum!

Yet, she is grateful for small victories, especially this one: The way the heart still beats time / in the cathedral of the ribs. Isn’t that a magnificent image, our faithfully beating heart in that holy vaulted space! Then she points out how our thoughts, when we begin to notice, are jugglers, fire-swallowers, acrobats. We start to see how they are tricksters, shysters who distract us from what is present in the moment. Perhaps we can all improve our vision by seeing what is right in front of us now.

Winter Grace by Patricia Fargnoli

If you have seen the snow
under the lamppost
piled up like a white beaver hat on the picnic table
or somewhere slowly falling
into the brook
to be swallowed by water,
then you have seen beauty
and know it for its transience.
And if you have gone out in the snow
for only the pleasure
of walking barely protected
from the galaxies,
the flakes settling on your parka
like the dust from just-born stars,
the cold waking you
as if from long sleeping,
then you can understand
how, more often than not,
truth is found in silence,
how the natural world comes to you
if you go out to meet it,
its icy ditches filled with dead weeds,
its vacant birdhouses, and dens
full of the sleeping.
But this is the slowed down season
held fast by darkness
and if no one comes to keep you company
then keep watch over your own solitude.
In that stillness, you will learn
with your whole body
the significance of cold
and the night,
which is otherwise always eluding you.

Winter Grace

Too often we miss appreciating the grace of winter, preoccupied as we may be with the bitterness of the cold air, the inconvenience of the snow that needs to be shoveled, the short days and early darkness. Yet Fargnoli, a New England poet who would have been well acquainted with deep snow winters, tells us that snow piled up like a white beaver hat and swallowed by water in the brook shows us beauty and lets us know it for its transience; it will not last.

And if we have gone walking with the flakes settling on your parka / like the dust from just-born stars we have the opportunity for pleasure – I’m entranced by the imagery of snow flakes as star dust! Then, she says, more often than not, / truth is found in silence; if you go walking in winter snow, how the natural world comes to you – dead weeds, vacant birdhouses, dens / full of the sleeping, all this will meet us.

What she wants us to remember is that this is the slowed down season / held fast by darkness and you must keep watch over your own solitude. She is asking us to pay attention to the significance of cold / and the night, to feel it with our whole body. Otherwise, we hurry past that stillness, those moments of awareness of our being in this beautiful, transient world, in the grace of winter.