Thursday, February 4, 2021

The Garden of Verse embraces the Garden of the Seasons: Three Poems in February's Verse-Virtual

We want it lighter: A seasonal message for the mid-winter in a northern climate. I have three poems in the February issue of Verse-Virtual, the poetry journal, and community, I have contributed to regularly since the final month of 2015. All three reflect on seasonal themes belonging to the end of the year. The holidays are behind us, and lots of winter lies still ahead, with vaccination-rendezvouses likely on our minds. Nevertheless these three story-poems look back on the holiday season and the winter solstice.

The poem "Twilight Kingdom" recalls a long-ago period in my life when I explored early winter twilights on the site of a no longer worked farm, with spirits in the air. 

The poem "We Went to Pick the Greens There" remembers a group of long-ago friends making an unconventional Christmas celebration. no family, no children, no parents. 

And the poem "you want it lighter" describes a solstice day expedition to another city to pay a holiday visit our daughter 

I'll post that poem below:  

 

You Want It Lighter 

Solstice Day:

Just wait,

whole seconds more of light coming tomorrow. 

You can see it in the silver-blue water of the harbor

pale with the reminiscence of ice: change is in the air.

We inch our way around the sun,

the suave conjunction of planetary influences

apparent, momentarily,

from a bridge over the Schuylkill River,

until clouds reform

to swallow the moment.

We arrive in the city of Daughterly Love

to find the light charmed into strings of tiny stars,

skilled hands brightening short days with carrot soup,

homegrown basil, morning mimosas

and all those other gifts of practical affection. 

 

For the others see Verse-Virtual

No comments:

Post a Comment