“Nuthatches”, watercolor, 2006, Jane Kohut-Bartels
WINTER INTO SPRING
Mysterious, silent season,
Where life and reason are suspended
Upon a cold metal wire.
The wind– a razoring of clipper glass
Sailing through glassine air
Slicing the pallid sun’s surface–
An attempt to warm a frigid earth
To remembered fertility.
-
Solemn seasonal palette,
White, gray, black,
Cut with a flash of blood-red-
A Kamikaze cardinal!
Like the demon wind bearing its name,
Dares the thin and paling air
To brighten only a moment–
A witness to recurring life.
-
Season of bountiful snow
Brings a thirsting to the land
Where hoar-frost leaches
Moisture with a crystallized withering-
Hands to crack, bark to shatter,
And all dries and curls about
In a perverse furnace of freeze.
-
One day, a pale day
Southern breezes
Break through the bonds of Winter
Brushes , sidles up
To ice
And a crack like a thump is felt in the gut,
A slow drip-drip of water
Signals the end of this harsh season,
As icicles emit a hesitant stream,
Then the ice- dam down in the brook
Explodes with a louder sound
And the rush to Spring
Is heralded with the noise.
-
A slight movement underground
Felt deep in the soil-
A careful stirring,
A rumble in the gut of the surface
As birth replaces death
Pushing through Earth’s womb
To a weak sun above–
-
The tyranny of Winter now broken.
-
Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2011, 2013
From “White Cranes of Heaven”, 2011, Lulu.com
Tags: "White Cranes of Heaven published by Lulu.com 2011, "Winter Into Spring", Lady Nyo-Jane Kohut--Bartels, lulu.com, poem, poetry
February 27, 2013 at 9:37 pm
as nimble as the nuthatches
as subtle as their colouring
these flashes of sun a welcome a vision of a step forward towards summer
-s- assonance like the wingbeat of the birds
in spurts
a contrast seemingly impossible but nevertheless true, like frost burn
scattered internal rhyme
and then the sounds arrive not just implied, but called by name.
Enjoyed this very much, Jane.
A master at work.
February 27, 2013 at 10:03 pm
LOL! Not a Master, oh Nooooo!
LOL! I was more entranced by your own internal poem as comment. Brava!
Kindred souls I think here.
Hugs,
Jane….I think you are running on all cylindars!
February 28, 2013 at 1:52 pm
Thanks to my father who told me about this blog, this web site is
in fact amazing.
March 1, 2013 at 12:38 pm
I always think of Nyo as No-yes-no
Know what? I didn’t write that comment with the slightest intention of writing it in poetry form. Not one iota. Only now when I re-read, I notice the rhyme.Weird. An inner voice seems to take over.
With that in mind I crave your input on last night’s poem. Can you spare time for a visit? link in my name here today.
There is a controversy at the end. People disagree with my breaking the rules in a line or two. But…it wasn’t me: it was the poet voice I can’t control. I must be getting better, although still far from well.
March 12, 2013 at 2:15 pm
Aprille, for some reason this comment was in spam…sorry!
Send me the poem of your consideration and I’ll read it and give my opinion.
Just had mouth surgery so I am curtailing visits around the globe. Am swollen and bruised. But will lessen in time. I hope.
And I think you are getting better~
Hugs,
Lady Nyo