134 Winter poems

1. Morning of Crystal This is the deathless body, and this the land’s blood … and here the wine-laced sky over Iowa resembles a heavenly parfait. In one more day Des Moines will be diapered by first snow. A young girl, barely real, glazes the sidewalk with a stupid look. Iowa in winter always dumbfounds the love in us. Before long, nothing opposes the weight and resolution of this sky, this wilderness of earth hardening. When heaviness strikes like a clock glowing incandescently, the season opens to itself, as if a familiar stunt in a traveling show, a fabulation only a touched young girl can devise for any new world. Des Moines. November 1973 2. Cooking the Cold

Snow falls gently in the Hill Country covering the meadows and the valleys. The sluggish streaks of smoke climb quietly from the roofs but fail to reach the lazy clouds. On Alamo Plaza in the heart of the night and under the flood of lights, the flakes float like frozen moths and glow like fireflies. They drop on the blades of dormant grass. They alight on the cobblestones and live awhile in silence, they dissolve before dawn. The wet limestone walls of the mission glow proudly after the night of snowfall.

Outside in the creek that feeds the lake and never freezes, an otter slaps the water with his paw to feel the current's pulse— Slip in, lie back. Slip in, lie back. He shuts his eyes and obeys, knowing the layers of hair and underfur will warm him while he floats on a faith we wish could carry us. The sound of his splashing fades, but not his joy in being pushed, light as driftwood, back to the mouth of the den I have seen carved out beneath the roots of a fallen fir now packed with snow and lined with leaves that promise his sleep will be deep. Because no dreams wait softly for me, I open the woodstove and strike a match, hold the bloom of the flame to kindling that catches quick as my wish: To be that slick body sliding into the lake that holds the moon, bright portal to glide through without so much as a shiver, no doubt about where I'm going, how to get there.

Sky’s gray sheet spreads icy rain. Through the night we heard the branches cracking. Now they bend with the bowed ache of apostrophes. Backs to the window, sitting on the couch, we listen as the radio announces the list of schools closed. An hour earlier I inched my way along the road, tires spinning toward the ditch. Now I read aloud to a teenage daughter, who tolerates my foolishness, my claim that Lao Tzu traversed a more slippery world. With two books open on my lap, one in my hand, two on the floor, I’m surrounded by imperfect translations: a gathering chaos; something mysteriously formed; without beginning, without end; formless and perfect. She responds, Sure, I knew that, so what? I persist: that existed before the heavens and the earth; before the universe was born. She’s ready to go upstairs and listen to the radio. I ask, What was her face before her parents were born? she answers, Nothing. I ask again. She says it again. Where are the angels, nights on humble knees, the psalms of faith, the saints of daylight? She walks out of the room. I’m surrounded by thin books. How pointless to go anywhere on this day, or maybe any other, but then the time comes when there is no other way but to stand firm on ice.

Some day, when trees have shed their leaves And against the morning’s white The shivering birds beneath the eaves Have sheltered for the night, We’ll turn our faces southward, love, Toward the summer isle Where bamboos spire the shafted grove And wide-mouthed orchids smile. And we will seek the quiet hill Where towers the cotton tree, And leaps the laughing crystal rill, And works the droning bee. And we will build a cottage there Beside an open glade, With black-ribbed blue-bells blowing near, And ferns that never fade.

The first frost kills the annuals every year and every year i'm somehow surprised goodbye to the basil goodbye to the begonias see you in may

A little heat in the iron radiator, the dog breathing at the foot of the bed, and the windows shut tight, encrusted with hexagons of frost. I can barely hear the geese complaining in the vast sky, flying over the living and the dead, schools and prisons, and the whitened fields.

Behold the gloomy tyrant’s awful form Binding the captive earth in icy chains; His chilling breath sweeps o’er the watery plains, Howls in the blast, and swells the rising storm. See from its centre bends the rifted tower, Threat’ning the lowly vale with frowning pride, O’er the scared flocks that seek its sheltering side, A fearful ruin o’er their heads to pour. While to the cheerful hearth and social board Content and ease repair, the sons of want Receive from niggard fate their pittance scant; And where some shed bleak covert may afford, Wan poverty, amidst her meagre host Casts round her haggard eyes, and shivers at the frost.

Couched on crimson cushions, pink bleeds gold and red spills into one’s heart. Broad leather keeps time, calibrating different hours in different zones unaware of the grammar that makes sense. Only random woofs and snores of two distant dogs on a very cold night clears fog that is unresolved. New plants wait for new heat — to grow, to mature. An old cane recliner contains poetry for peace — woven text keeping comfort in place. But it is the impatience of want that keeps equations unsolved. Heavy, translucent, vaporous, split red by mother tongues — winter’s breath is pink.

The wintry west extends his blast, And hail and rain does blaw; Or, the stormy north sends driving forth The blinding sleet and snaw: While tumbling brown, the burn comes down, And roars frae bank to brae; And bird and beast in covert rest, And pass the heartless day. The sweeping blast, the sky o’ercast, The joyless winter-day, Let others fear, to me more dear Than all the pride of May: The tempest’s howl, it soothes my soul, My griefs it seems to join; The leafless trees my fancy please, Their fate resembles mine! Thou Pow’r Supreme, whose mighty scheme These woes of mine fulfil, Here, firm, I rest, they must be best, Because they are Thy will! Then all I want (O, do Thou grant This one request of mine!) Since to enjoy Thou dost deny, Assist me to resign.