“In The Hollow Of Winter Twilight”,

The silence of winter makes space for contemplation.  This season of stillness, expectation, is also a time for  solitude.  Books, a low fire, the company of cats and dogs, the bare-boned limbs of trees outside, the possibilities of this ’empty’ season draw our minds to contemplate our lives and where we are ‘going’. I need this space, just to be still, to feel gratitude.  There will be spring, with planting of gardens and the wonder of buds, but for now, this bare, washed palette outside, with its greys, blacks and duns comforts my eyes and mind.  It is enough.

Lady Nyo

IN THE HOLLOW OF WINTER TWILIGHT

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In the hollow of winter twilight

The ground of the soul is darkened,

Silent, waiting,

A shallow breath will do.

. 

Muted  tints

Flood earth and sky,

Black bare-armed trees,

Skeleton-like,

Now softened in this sullen light,

 To clothe with longing.

. 

True winter has begun

This season of scarcity, silence,

Survival never assured,

The very thinness of air,

A sharp, searing bitter breath of air,

The inhaled pain alerts us to life.

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No excited cries of birds,

No rumble of young  squirrels

Turning tree hollows into hide and seek,

Only faint tracks in the layered snow

Gives  evidence of others around,

Small three-point, delicate prints

As if a creature bounded on tiptoe.

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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.

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Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2012