Ginkgo biloba
Emerald
gold
copper and bronze
day by day she turns the ring
of her seasons
winding it
on the fingers
of her land
until
taking a breath of cold air
she disrobes
and then puts on
a gown of purest white
sprinkled with diamonds
in which to dream
of seasons
yet to come
until
taking a breath of warm sun
she awakens
with opalescent rainbows
day by day
she turns the ring
again
to emerald
~Harriet Kofalk
This poem is at once clear-eyed and hopeful, traits to strive for on this particular day.
For the Children
The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us,
the steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down.
In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.
To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:
stay together
learn the flowers
go light
~Gary Snyder
Each pine at dusk
lodges the bird
of its voice
perpendicular and still
the forest
indifferent to history
tearless as stone
repeats
in tremulous excitement
the ancient story
of the sun going down
– John Berger
Blue Winter
Winter uses all the blues there are.
One shade of blue for water, one for ice,
Another blue for shadows over snow.
The clear or cloudy sky uses blue twice-
Both different blues. And hills row after row
Are colored blue according to how far.
You know the bluejay’s double-blur device
Shows best when there are no green leaves to show.
And Sirius is a winterbluegreen star.
~Robert Francis
December Night
The cold slope is standing in darkness
But the south of the trees is dry to the touch
The heavy limbs climb into the moonlight bearing feathers
I came to watch these
White plants older at night
The oldest
Come first to the ruins
And I hear magpies kept awake by the moon
The water flows through its
Own fingers without end
Tonight once more
I find a single prayer and it is not for men
~W.S. Merwin
Nandina domestica
Winter Eyes
Look at winter
With winter eyes
As smoke curls from rooftops
To clear cobalt skies.
Breathe in winter
Past winter nose:
The sweet scent of black birch
Where velvet moss grows.
Walk through winter
With winter feet
On crackling ice
Or sloshy wet sleet.
Look at winter
With winter eyes:
The rustling of oak leaves
As spring slowly nears.
~Douglas Florian
WINTER: TONIGHT: SUNSET
Tonight at sunset walking on the snowy road,
my shoes crunching on the frozen gravel, firstthrough the woods, then out into the open fields
past a couple of trailers and some pickup trucks, I stopand look at the sky. Suddenly: orange, red, pink, blue,
green, purple, yellow, gray, all at once and everywhere.I pause in this moment at the beginning of my old age
and I say a prayer of gratitude for getting to this eveninga prayer for being here, today, now, alive
in this life, in this evening, under this sky.~David Budbill
Helianthus annuus
Approach of Winter The half-stripped trees struck by a wind together, bending all, the leaves flutter drily and refuse to let go or driven like hail stream bitterly out to one side and fall where the salvias, hard carmine,— like no leaf that ever was— edge the bare garden. ~William Carlos Williams
An Eclectic Nature 