Solstice: A winter anthology, Winter 2022
Beneath the Stars
I Release
The moon rising later
gives me more time
with the stars.
Brittle cold glass
shattering air cuts
my time beneath them.
I ponder my release as it
bubbles then puddles.
Will it freeze solid overnight?
Melt and mortify into unpleasant
aromas in the spring?
In a tooth-cracking breeze
I shake, close myself up,
and go back to the fire inside.
Take comfort there.
Think of warm friends.
Hot times.
On Lake Washinton:
The Duck
The silence
upon which these feathers
float is the wishing well
for my pending altruism,
the wish itself the stillness
which drifts from its center
like fog from the heavens
inter-coursing the city
with its mysterious
elongated mood.
I feel in her there
this body
flowing with hers.
When she dives
she eats the quietude
of cold winter waters,
at the surface spits it out,
a fish in her mouth
for those of us
come to the edge,
to goad us from the nest.
Hibernation
These outdoor smells
of nature chilled
beckon the bear in me,
a winter call
to hunker down
and dream.
And in this seasonal drag
I wonder
in my doing,
pulling in,
what I will not be doing,
In my thinking,
letting out,
what I will not be thinking.
I think,
inhaling thoughts,
and release circles of smoke
into the belly of the beast.
I grieve,
pulling in,
what will be left undone,
and let out
these ruminations feeding
my hunger in sleep,
pulling in emptiness,
grateful for the quiet.