The landscape recedes in New England this time of year. Winter has arrived and a landscape that was swollen with mass and depth and striking color – particularly in its last blast – shrink to silhouette. But one of the beauties of our climate is that at the exact time the winter solstice occurs, it begins to recede. The shortest day of the year (December 21st) is the signal that the days will actually begin to lengthen. Here’s a comforting thought: strangely enough, the very arrival of winter is the first sign of spring. (more…)

The forest having wept
The trail is framed in ice -
Tears frozen -
Glazed across the granite face
While weeping spruce
Silver-green and shuddering -
Shoulders crouched
Look the other way
As if guiltless,
Pulling the quilt of snow
Across arms outreached.

The black brook frozen
As a vein along the trail
Now soundless in long sun
And secret sacrifice
To winter’s meditation
All sadness blown away
By the sound of your boots
Across fresh snow
And that laugh that lingers
Like eternal spring melting -
Moving ice-sent floods-
To rush over me.