“In The Hollow of Winter’s Twilight”

(“Off the Coast of Ireland”, watercolor, Jane Kohut-Bartels, 2004)

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In the hollow of winter’s twilight
The ground of the soul is darkened,
Silent, waiting,
Winter’s winds now shallow breaths.
.
Muted tints
Flood earth and sky,
Black bare-armed trees,
Skeleton-like,
Softened in this sullen light,
To clothe eyes with longing.
.
True winter has begun.
This season of scarcity,
Survival never assured,
The very thinness of air,
A sharp, searing bitter breath of air,
The inhaled pain alerts to life.
.
No excited cries of birds,
No rumble of young squirrels
Turning tree hollows into hide and seek,
Only faint tracks in the layered snow
Given evidence of others,
Small three-point, delicate prints
As if a creature pranced on tiptoe.
.
There is little left to do
In this darkened ground of soul-time
But rest before the fire
And fill the hollow of the season
With hope, patience and desire.
.
Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2018

 

Tags: "In the Hollow of Winter's Twilight", Ireland, Jane Kohut-Bartels, poetry, Winter