Winter, Beth

Beth Winter

my periwinkle shirt

Today, I’ll wear my periwinkle shirt,
the one I snagged against a splintered branch,
then patched the rip, I couldn’t throw it out
because the blue embraced the hope of spring.

The rolling hills and river beckon me
to come and share the gently waking scene,
to loose the dogs and let them run unleashed
across the prairie’s green rebirth from brown

and down where daffodils spread pastel gold,
I’ll peek between the leaves that rise as swords
to see if pansies wear their royal gowns
and check reflections cast at water’s edge.

Untamed, the wind will rearrange my locks
while sunlight scolds my cheeks a tulip pink.
I’ll shrug off winter’s heavy woolen air
refreshed by periwinkle’s purplish hue.

This Winter Day

Today, I feel years
that belong to an older soul,
the weight of snow on rafters

threatens my stance
with each short step
gingerly placed on tenuous ice.

Knees ache
as if prayer
demanded the sacrifice
of stark bone
under too-thin flesh.

I feel burdened
by ages past
with words unspoken,

yet the blur before me
is but frost on the window,

clarity encased in glass etchings
that script the future
of a winter day.

Endings

When silence overpowers ease
and everlasting bonds unbind,
does faith exist for times like these
when silence overpowers ease?
For fervent hopes cannot appease
as steps advance with loss resigned,
when silence overpowers ease
and everlasting bonds unbind.

Portal

More distant than the timber tall,
beyond the ancient elms,
examine near each garden wall
to spy the hidden realms.

Engraved in mossy common stone
whose seams defy the wind,
a score once set by wizened crone
marks where dimensions bend.

When gloam engulfs the waning light,
when Luna hides his eyes,
when great Orion guards the night
in clearest star-flush skies,

an eastern breeze might stir the glade,
the rune might shimmer-shine
as powers secret are conveyed
when elements align.

The stonework might dissolve to air,
the bonds may melt to mists,
then gently absent of fanfare
a windowed world persists.

For magic hides this elven land
as soil and sea recede
with wonders few observe firsthand
where solace is decreed.

Should fortune lead you to this dell
and factors fit to place,
let dusk invoke its artful spell
then bask in elven grace.

Beth Winter's Profile

It's only a tree

I tell the corner of my eye to stop imagining things
each time it grabs the tree trunk
and pulls memories
from the play of light
and shadows,

the angle reminding me again
and again
of your leaning slouch,

of nocturnal walks
while we let excitement escape
from our room
and the urge to rest
smooth dampened sheets,
but that was then
and though the crabapple poses
to keep you in my peripheral vision,
I rub the scars left behind
by roughened bark
and shift my focus
to the stature of the sapling
that stands
where I planted my feet.

with the rising moon

as winter-short day waned,
the oracle rose,
flooding night with silence

to read coded messages
etched on frosted panes
and found,
in his absence,

another child
learned the depth of hunger
& cold

in the vacancy
of an apology
un-felt,

and wept.

Questioning Faith

As the heavens shift violently
in preparation
for premature arrivals into afterlife,

I feel the grief
that defies consolation

and wonder if in transcription
or translation over centuries,
a comma slipped into the wrong place

or an exclamation point
was edited to invisibility
and the passage should read,

“Suffer! Little children come unto me.”