WINTER EPIPHANIES

                         JOURNEYING


getting old    living alone    another winter
wind cuts deeper    ice more treacherous
night slices down from beyond the stars
how much I long to hold you in my arms

sister   father   mother   brother--all gone
only I've lasted of that splintered family
yet their ghosts still haunt my journeying
how much I long to hold you in my arms

I'm a deathless spirit in a dying animal
bones crack--chilled by the cold and dark
spring's far away    hope seems orphaned
how much I long to hold you in my arms


                                ***

     We all know them, don't we--those times when inner and outer weather converge to an almost despairing loneliness. Emily Dickinson wrote: "There's a certain Slant of light,/Winter Afternoons--/That oppresses, like the Heft/Of Cathedral Tunes/--Heavenly Hurt it gives us--/We can find no scar,/But internal difference,/Where the Meanings, are--". To be human is at times to feel that "Heavenly Hurt." What makes it bearable, if we endure humbly and patiently, is the rebirth which may arise from such depths.

       JANUARY THAW

dead winter    leaden sky

     the lake frozen over

          my heart too 

          then I see it

       tangled among

the fir tree's branches

       broken open--

       a milkweed pod

inside    bursting loose

    feathery chutes

      awake    unfurling

   the seeds are ready

   the seeds are ready!

look    how they spill

         into my hand

       I release them

my heart laughs

      they float free

        on the cold wind 

whirling!    dancing!

              *** 

    My heart is ever waiting for spring, for renewal, for rebirth! The smallest sign, even in the dead of winter, is enough to lift my spirits. To see those milkweed seeds whirling and dancing on the cold wind! They reminded me, revitalized me. As Chief Seattle said: There is no death. Only a change of worlds."