Month: February 2025

On this grey morning

On this grey morning
All seems bleak
All seems dead

Bare branches encased in ice
A slurry of snow coating the earth
Treacherous and slick
Hiding the hard ground

Life seems to have turned on itself

Some retreat and are able to stay inside
Cozy and warm though resentful
Others who have nowhere to go
Are battered
Burying hope
As the Earth is now buried
Such conditions we are all in

Winter is here in its fullness

But look deep
It has more to share

Its song crunches beneath feet
Crackles on branches in the shifting wind
Glistens in translucent magic
Highlighting the shapes and forms of tree limbs, bushes, evergreens
The wonder of icicles drip from everything
Cable wires, gutters and the bottoms of cars
Cold bites the face and tingles fingers and toes
Telling us

I’m here
Don’t run
Feel this too

There’s nowhere else to be

Embrace me too in this season of your life
Take care and stay warm of course
You’ll die otherwise
But don’t hate me
For I am this life too

It’s easy to rail against me
To be worried and afraid
When all seems harsh and unfair

Remember the seeming ease of other seasons
When life appeared abundant
Welcoming

Even then you needed to find your way
You still needed to be free

That hasn’t changed

Just the season
The weather
The conditions that await you
As you live day by day

Find ways to dance and smile
To love and sing
To wonder and connect
To help and get help
To tell your story and to listen to others
To build what is needed
Take down or let rot what is not

Look deep today and you’ll find the warmth you seek

Even in this season of the grey

The river was low clear and cold

 
The river was low clear and cold.
Its song trickled against my ears as a sharp wind pressed against my back. 
The sun, shining through cloud and bare branches, warmed my face.
I heard the voice of a friend coming closer.
A trail of small people, aged 3 or 4, trailed behind her,
Holding tightly, though absentmindedly, to rings connected to a rainbow colored rope,
Keeping them together and safe.
They passed, and I got a heartful hug and lots of little waves, and hellos, and bright wide eyes, and smiling brown faces.
As soon as they got to the other side of the bridge 
They stepped onto the snow covered field and my friend gathered the rope and looped the rings on her arm in a well practiced gesture.
They were off,
Screeching and running towards a super sized snow ball resting in the warming sun.
Across the field they ran and I took in the view:
Children running as much up and down as they were forward, 
Boots tromping through softening snow,
Coats open and streaming behind them,
Laughing and falling, and going from here to there.
Above them, a mountain, with a rusty colored rockface stood solid.
Vultures and falcons, riding the updrafts, soared along its base and rose to its ridge line.
Their shadows dancing and flickering along the nooks and crannies of the bare rock.
Sun and clouds and wind and sky stretched over us all:
River,
Children,
Trees, 
Friends. 
And despite all the reasons to grieve and worry, 
I laughed and my heart was filled.