(winter)

This year
I have given myself
winter.
I have not held
back, have not
resisted what
it is.
Some days I am
in my thermals
all day,
without make-up.
If it rains
I do not leave
the house.
and some days
if it doesn’t.
I burrow in
to work,
losing time,
the world.

Other years
I have tried
to force myself
to be cheery.

This winter
I have stopped
everything
I don’t want
to do,
Hibernating
until the mood
shifts, until
my energy
rises like
bread on a
summer counter.

Then I will
rustle to life
like an old
bear in spring,
remembering
fish,
the feel of icey
rivers on fur.

Hurrying,
I will get the wildflower seeds
in the ground,
plant the pink hollyhocks
I am planning on.

Winter is such
silence, I cannot
even speak of it.
I have to rush
my mind ahead
to spring
to find words.

This is the winter
I have always
wanted,
the “in case
I’m snowed in”
winter, that
prompted me
to save more recipes
than I can organize,
too many bits
& pieces of possible
projects,
articles to read,
notes to
sort through
just in case –
I was ever
cut off and
not only lacking
a source of supply
but finally
being in that
place where time
was luxurious
enough to allow
those activites . (List)
It is not the stuff
we need, of course
but the process,
the sorting and shifting
in front of the
fire,
the meditation
of our hands
sewing.
Without winter
we never get
to rest,
to slow down
enough
to catch up to ourselves.

??It takes
a long stretch
of silence
to remember
who you are
and how to be that.

It’s the danger
of temperate
climates.
We rush about
all year,
out in it,
up to our ears
in everything
outside us.

Sometimes we have
to snow ourselves
in.
This year I have
learned that
at last.

1/27/99