Facing North
Facing north
after the snowstorm
windless clouds.
Poems on the topic: winter
Poems on the topic “winter” on Poets.by.
Traveling Through
Traveling through
the long winter nights
at the speed of dark.
The Last Six Months
The last six months
should be the fastest.
It is still winter.
Still No Wind
Still no wind
this long dreary winter,
solitary bird.
Some Things Will
In a garden's grave, life remains: beets
Never pulled may be pulled now, to boil
And put back, for the flock to discover;
Greens have carried on and are taken
And dehydrated, or left for the goose to strip;
Red highlights show missed tomatoes;
Dense thickets of dead vines give beans.
Even the weeds, that had defeated her,
Now yield rich heads of seed for hens.
She walks about, coat-wrapped, scanning
Ground for spuds rolled out by hen feet.
Rarely, rewardingly, a ripe winter's squash
Awaits discovery. Gone to seed last year,
Viable chard and kale erupt now
Even as it were March, and are welcomed.
Little remains of her apple crop,
That Time
That time when there is yet nothing,
Her skills being at rest, synchronized
And sympathetic with soil's sleep --
Timid buds of lilac or jonquil still
Tucked within themselves -- she wonders
If she's even a subsistence woman, is
Mistaken in that as so much else, as when
Even deep snow cannot efface what
Winter erases when it is nearest spring.
Her hands stretch to packaged seeds;
Enter into bargains with their quietude.
Now? Now? Now? Now? she asks them,
Though she knows they will not move.
Here by a cold window she spreads
Envelopes on her table: peas, beets.
Radishes will be first, nearest the house.
Decembering
All that is left is the Granny Smiths; she
Loves that they cling to their shivered tree,
Leaves long gone. Even the hens have left off
Trusting the sky to toss them sugar, and
Have retired to their tractor, pecking
At storebought feed in its styrene bin.
The winds whistle through, rasping
Ink-black twigs together; the apples nod and
Stub their green bellies. She
Lifts ten or so down, as if they were
Each one of her own breasts, tenderly
Filling her small basket. In the kitchen
They will sit shyly waiting their turn:
It is the season for other foods; in
Stoneware bowls, nuts and citrus
Talk among themselves in distant tongues.
Lettuce in Winter
The potting room was a miserable dank
shed, trash-chocked, roofed in plastic, blackberries
ingrown amid bedlam. she dragged it all into
the light, sifting for tools or nails, then
consigning the rest to dump runs. With one son,
the quiet one, she roofed the room with scraps,
tucking, there, or here, oddly-sized old windows.
To the south, a sliding door turned on its side
served for greenhouse glass. A friend's offer
of a chimney to salvage solved the question of how
to floor. With her other son, the tall one, she
rented a long-legged ladder for picking bricks
from the air, frightened at every ragged breath.
They piled them by the plant-room door, and the girl,
Summer Is a Second Season
April is gone,
Summer is a second season,
The landscape is now;
There is no reason
For past or future thinking,
The plow lies in the shed,
And the land is dead
To all motion save the slow
Brilliant blossoming of summer.
Only later will the furrowed brow
Perceive the seasons' separations
And remember and understand
Harsh imprint of spring.
Then a scarecrow will look down
Longingly on creation
And with snowfall, fall
Forty-Six
This stream
in winter cannot
be crossed —
or only if you
care not where
you come ashore.
Thirty-One
Snow plumed straight down
like river foam.
I knew where
the trees were,
loading themselves
with white —
but could not
find them.
Twenty-Eight
In white silence
my muffled boots
made rounds.
Where I looked,
I saw no tracks
but mine.
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