Category: Winter Ballads

Haha! Just look at you, there,
opening your arms to the light.
I’ve been longing to see you,
you, brave rising green thing of springtime.
so suddenly tall, breathing the sun,
Just look at your joy, look at you
singing triumph over winter’s long sleep,
over the desolation of brown and gray.
Oh wee one, who will burst into yellow
summer flowers, welcome! Welcome!
Just look at you there!

Even in the morning’s cold you come
and we trade chirps and songs,
forgetting everything else except
the way the clear air shivers
with the happiness of our greeting.

The light from the rising sun hits the maples
atop the western hill, and all of a sudden
the world is awake and eager. Even
the trees still in shadow dance,
the gladness of morning spilling
brand new chances everywhere.
Birds chirp; dew glistens.
I pour fresh coffee and nod my head
at the scene, my eyes smiling my yes.
Bring it on, wondrous world. Bring it on.

Some time back I read where this scientist
discovered that different emotions produced
different lines on paper using a machine hooked
on one end to a human, on the other to a pen.
Everybody’s sadness made the same shape.
So did their mad and their joy. I remembered
that as I gazed at the budding maple, its limbs
writing joy across the nearly spring sky.

I walk into the woods in search of signs
of spring’s emergence. Here and there,
blades of grass poke through the layers
of last year’s fallen leaves. But mostly
the browns eclipse the bits of green.
I am weary of the hue and eager
for curled ferns and wee flowers.
Then a whisper floats into my awareness:
Remember winter’s gift to you. Oh, yes!
Lessons in color and form. And there
at my feet, I see the day’s offering,
a lacy filigree of white atop a curled wave
of sugared brown, a treasure, to be sure.
Remember, comes the whisper.
And I nod, and gently smile.

We’re here, world. Do what you will.
We come with green sprouts tinged with hints
of blue sky, and fat buds destined to spread
ruffled petals as yellow as lemon, painting
your hillsides with joy. Just because.

The rain continues; the trees dance.
The wind is getting wild. Enough light remains
for me to see the drama. It’s like watching
white caps on Saginaw Bay when a storm
whips the gray waters. The trees,
I think, may like to flex now and then,
to feel their own strength and resilience.
Us, too, I tell them. It’s good to see
sometimes, how far we all can bend.

Don’t try to make sense of it.
Yes, it’s intense from time to time
and we are but a fleshy dance
of molecules and fire, easily
thrown by unexpected rhythms
and long, twisted rhymes. It’s okay.
Sooner or later a moment
will come along to stop you
in your tracks, snatch your breath.
jolt you awake, astonished.
And you will remember, and go on,
grateful, regardless.

Some days are bleak and gray.
This one falls on the month’s last day,
as if it is holding a funeral for the weeks
it held, when invisible poisons settled
on the towns and rivers, the creeks and fields.
I gaze at the trees atop the south hill
and with them I mourn all that was lost.
Tomorrow the sun will rise, and our spirits
with it. And we will go on, because
that’s what we do. And spring will come,
as if nothing had happened at all.

I think it matters that someone stops
to look in admiration. And I think
it makes the looker much bigger inside
as well.