Cold-weather poems

From a winter-born poet

Photo by Luke Hodde on Unsplash

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I read somewhere recently that the season you’re born in is the one that will be your favorite. That seems … unscientific to me, but then again, as far as I’m concerned, it’s perfectly true. Other Capricorns and Aquarians, weigh in here: is winter your best time of year, or nah?

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                                                                                     1985


Cold weather’s best.

Summer heat
sends passions pacing hotfoot through the street,
robs dreams of rest,
feeds blood-fire till it flushes out to meet
the sun’s hot fingers where they rub your skin.

Cold drives you in;

to learn the price of fire,
to learn to tend the hearth of long desire
between walls wrapped with wind,
all storms shut out, and silence all shut in,
all heat contained, all embers coalesced.

Cold weather’s best.

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A HEART FOR WINTER                                           2023


I feel for those who grieve when summer’s long days
pull in, who soak up zest and comfort from skysful
of light and warmth, who feel bereft when darkness lengthens
and daylight cools, leaving their hearts and aching bones
uncomforted. I share their aches but have a different heart,
one made for darkness and for winter; a whole skyful
of summer sun undoes me, endless heat and light
leave me on edge, tasting each hot breeze for smoke,
my skin parch-cracked like soil in drought. No, give me
short and cloud-gray days, long nights of rain, give me
cold that makes a blessing of my body’s furnace, give me
light and heat a roomful at a time. And in the heart of winter
give me the feast of Light in Darkness, a tiny lamp
shining at midnight in a stable window, Incarnation
drawn like a layer of cloud between us and the love of God
so we can look at it and not go blind. All praise
to summer’s bright and generous bounty, praise to springtime’s
tender glorious wakenings and the restless quiet of autumn;
I have a heart for winter, for dark and frost-bound days
that sweeten all we know of warmth and light.

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