“In The Hollow of Winter’s Twilight”

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

-.
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

 

“A Few Haiku, a Few Tanka”

Madame Carriere climbed up the second story window but alas!  Was cut back.  In a few years she  grew 20×20 feet.  Amazing rose.  Have replaced her with another one.

 

Because I am so cold, I thought a few springish haiku and tanka would take my mind off Winter.  It’s not working.

—

Haiku

–

Dogwoods are blooming
The crucifixion appears
White moths in the night.

–

(Dogwoods are a Southern tree here in the South.  White blooms
having the form of the Christian Cross, with nail heads.  They bloom in the spring  right before Easter. They are a symbol of Christianity in Nature.)

–

Under the dark moon

I awaited your return

Only shadows came.

–

The moon, a ghostly

Sliver, sails on a jet sea

Wild dogs howl beneath.

–

A woman in bed

Kimono revealing breast

Snow on Mt. Fuji

–

Tibetan earthworms

Bring a halt to all labor.

Here? Fat koi eat well.

–

Rooster doesn’t crow

Night’s loud thunder and lightning

Ruins his morning voice.

—

Even the hoot owls

Are silent this stormy night

Wind muffles their cries.

–

Tanka

–

The fire of life

Is love. No exact measure.

A whirling dervish

Hands in opposite display

Gathers in the miracle.

–

Spring

–
The sound of frog-calls,
In the pond floats a pale moon
Fresh life is stirring
An early owl goes hunting
Wise mice scatter for cover.

–

Thin, silken breezes

Float upon a green-ribbon

Of spring—pale season.

Scent of lilies, myrtle, plum

Arouse bees from slumber.

–

Restless and confused,

Birds cry out, sky darkening

Rain lashes, flooding

Freshly planted fields drown

Wind sails red tiles from  roofs.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2018

 

“First Snowfall”…..

 

 

(Not quite Winter Solstice, Tomorrow, Thursday, 11:28am)  Hard to see, but on the coffee table, there are Red, White and Green Candles, the Colors of the Hungarian Flag.

First Snowfall

 

There is such beauty in the still-night.

A sudden snowfall has pushed back

The boundaries of the mundane

And fantasy flows like outrageous mythology.

–

Chrystalized snow challenges the moon

Lights up a trampled ground

Gives a purity to all it touches.

 

Shadows form where before there were none

A supple mystery to something once familiar.

Now a strange and alluring world

Transformed, made anew,

Even forbidding as  huge trees

Groan with an icy burden

And bushes are split in two

With the weight of an alien gift.

 

–

The silence is complete.

No modern disturbance intrudes.

It is Winter’s gag on our fretfulness,

Our restlessness, our noise.

 

We are commanded to stay inside

By the fire, to read a book,

To look outside and admire

A miracle that we, with all our intelligence

Can not remake.

–

This is Winter’s true gift.

We are to obey the season,

This enforced solitude,

To wrap ourselves in this quilt of quiet,

Cast off our endless activity,

To finally be still,

To heal with the balm of serenity,

Silence.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2017

“Where Mystery is Beckoned…”

(“Canadian Geese”, watercolor, Jane Kohut-Bartels, 2005)

—

This waning autumn season,

That burst upon the mindscape

Hijacked a summer landscape,

Dared mingle dazzling elements

Of color, odors, tangled undergrowth,

Where things are lost in each other

And plausible limits vanish.

 

And with the passage of these days

The Earth transformed in scarcity,

A stretching silence,

A gathering solitude

Where Pan’s pipes are brittle straw

Made golden, hollow by harvest.

 

Come celebrate this solitude

Rejoice with me in silence

Where time warps

And darkness gathers,

Where mystery is beckoned

By hoar frost and shadows.

All color now corralled

Like old dun horses

Barely moving against the grey of day.

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2016

 

 

“Via Negativa”, a Winter poem

We were robbed this Winter. A short season, and we will pay for it.  Not enough cold weather to set the peach trees, and a bountiful harvest of insect pests to be expected. I depend upon Winter to recharge my batteries, but we have floated into an early summer with temps tomorrow in the mid 80’s.  Yikes!

=

Via Negativa

 

Winter is the perfect channel

To carry Via Negativa,

No static

Just Silence, Stillness

And the Dark.

 

On this path,

We sit in contemplation,

No answers,

No struggle,

Empty as an eggshell.

 

The time  colored by little outside;

A flash of kamikaze cardinal

Like a stream of blood

racing past our eyes,

The sound of a falling limb

Eyes searching the skies,

The moaning of  wind

bustling around limbs,

And the rattle of skeleton- bones

Of attic haunts.

 

And  Death,

As Winter brings

To those succumbed  to frigid winds,

strayed from shelter.

 

We spiral into  Darkness,

Where we barely draw breath,

Conserve our energy,

And stare outside at

A blank palette.

 

Stilling ourselves,

We draw close to low fires,

Scratch our dried skin

Like monks in  hair shirts,

And with time and patience–

spiral back to the light of

a tender Spring.

 

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2014…..Via Negativa was published in “Pitcher of Moon”, published by Amazon.com (Createspace), 2014

“Winter’s Withered Hand”, a poem

 

Winter’s withered hand

Scrapes across muted landscapes

And steals comfort from a sullen earth.

 

Birds fall frozen to the ground,

Lambs to the seasonal slaughter,

Ducks held fast in unflinching ice.

 

The elders give up the ghost ,

Just fade away

In this death-howling season and

Pale newborns struggle towards warmth.

 

In this silenced land of winter,

colors stark, dissolved,

Black limbs lifted to a somber sky

Like wooden beggars pleading for alms.

 

I listen for the melting

One unseasonable day—

The breaking of ice around a dam,

The baby babble of some brook

The laugh of a crow overhead,

The drip-drip of a leaky faucet—

 

The earth will turn

On its axis

And with this

Comes the promise

Of Spring.

 

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted,  2016

“Snowstorm”

Not yet, but there is always anticipation.  Maybe next Tuesday.

 

 

There is witchery in the night,

Monstrous ghost trees loom,

Every minor twig blasted thick crystal,

Bushes cold-laden exploded willows

Bending in tired submission

To a transformed ground.

 

The dark of a winter sky

A distant rose-pale glow

As if some drunken Aurora Borealis

Has cast her color, dipped low

Wheeled from her northern skies

And settled in for a night below.

 

Commonalities made fantastic

A jolt from a bare frost-parched season-

Incomprehensible mystery before the eye.

 

 

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2010-16

 

 

First Snowfall

 

Liras, a strong  writer and a woman who stands up to her convictions, has posted the first chapter of “Diary of a Changling”, a series I wrote  about Paris, 1940.  An Englishwoman is stranded in Paris when the Nazis march in, and her lover, unbeknownst to her, is in the French Resistance.  There are only 10 chapters so far in the novella. 

Warning:  this is a work of erotica.

Thank you, Liras.  Her blog can be found at juicymetaphor.wordpress.com

Lady Nyo

 

First Snowfall

 

There is such beauty in the still-night.

A sudden snowfall  pushed

The boundaries of the mundane back

And fantasy flows like outrageous mythology.

–

The white challenges the moon

Lights up a trampled ground

And gives a purity to all it covers.

Shadows form where  there were none

A supple mystery to something  familiar,

Now a strange, alluring world

Transformed, made anew,

Even forbidding as the huge trees

Groan with an icy burden

And bushes are split in two

With the weight of an alien gift,

Power lines  crystalized spider webs

Spun across streets.

–

The silence complete.

No modern noise intrudes.

It is Winter’s gag on  fretfulness,

Restlessness, all noise.

–

Commanded to stay inside

To read a book,

To look outside and admire

A miracle that we, with all our intelligence

Can not remake.

–

This is Winter’s true gift.

We are to obey the season

This enforced solitude,

Wrap  ourselves in this quilt of quiet,

Cast off our endless activity,

Finally be still,

To heal with a balm of serenity.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2014

“BlackBerry Winter”, a poem for Steve Isaak.

Blackberry Winter

–

It’s almost Spring, and the weather this week seems complacent, giving in to our hopes for gentler weather. Though it’s dicey to plant anything down here in the South before Easter, I have put in a long row of onions and hope for the best. Never had any luck with onions, because you have to ‘hill’ them, plant them shallow, and push the soil from their growing bulbs. I’ve done the hills and we expect rain this whole week, but as I sit here writing, the sun is coming out and rain seems will be spotty. I have trays of tomato seeds germinating on my painting table in front of a large window and tender sprouts are raising their leaves above the plastic.

I love Winter, but this one gave us nothing but cold weather, no snow and that was a major disappointment for me. The new woodstove has finally been learned by us, and now it’s not called “the worse stove ever”. There’s intelligence in these things and ours was wanting.

Steve Isaak is a poet friend from California of many years standing.  It is good to have poets as friends.  They nudge you in the direction of what you are not writing lately by their friendship, and they a generally, when their hearts are forgiving, loyal.

Lady Nyo

–

BLACKBERRY WINTER

–

 

It is Blackberry Winter

One last shot across

The bow of an emerging Spring.

 

Winter does not play fair,

It will not give up the ghost

Exit with a dignified bow

Preferring to show its rotting last tooth.

 

The blackberries are blooming

Kernels of lusty fruit,

Black as midnight

Sweet as a baby’s kiss,

Unavoidable staining of hands and mouths

To be shared with a snake or two down below.

 

The Easter planting is done

The earth knows your game

And blankets seeds

With dark, moist soil

Cozy enough to shelter tender life.

 

We will make blackberry wine

From Blackberry Winter.

The present chill will

Sweeten the fruit.

And will toast this short

Spell of Winter’s fading glory.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2015

“Via Negativa”, from ‘Pitcher of Moon’

–

–

Winter still drags on, and most of the country has been hit with deep snowstorms.  In the South, we have received almost nothing of snow, the most beautiful element of Winter.  Right now, as I write this, I look out my window with blurry eyes (it is early) and it is either rain or a very light snow falling. It is rain, the snow an illusion brought on by aging eyes.

Probably because Atlanta isn’t Boston with over 100 inches of snow this year, I look toward the solitude of being quieted in a snow fall.  The air is muffled, the greys and black of the trees stand out in sharp contrast to everything around them, the traffic halts, only the birds, cardinals and wrens and whatever attacks the bird feeders in the yards are going about their business of survival.  Inside, thanks to the labor of this fall, with a good stack of dried wood, the woodstove heats most of this old house, which is a miracle in of itself. My husband has redesigned and remodeled this 1880’s house with  a more open floor plan.  It’s not the quaint Victorians with their turrets and gingerbread, but a solid English farmhouse, built 3 miles south of downtown Atlanta, an oddity now and probably back then.  The original owners and builders were the Ragsdales, out from Lancaster, England in the 1860’s, owners of West End Horse and Mule, a carriage company. 

This poem is about the trials of Winter.  We have not experienced the continuous raw weather, the dangerous snows, the complete interruptions of power, nor the isolation where you can’t travel or even get out of your house. But this particular season changes much, gives a breather in the usual activities and within that particular space, can nudge forth a deeper creativity.  It certainly is a cessation in the usual activity of humankind and beast.

Lady Nyo

–

Via Negativa

Winter is the perfect channel

To carry Via Negativa,

No static

Just Silence, Stillness

And the Dark.

–

On this path,

We sit in contemplation,

No answers,

No struggle,

We are as empty as an eggshell.

–

This time is colored by little outside;

A flash of darting cardinal

Like a stream of blood

racing past our eyes,

The sound of a falling limb

makes us search the skies,

The moaning of the wind

bustling around limbs,

And the rattle of the skeleton-bones

Of attic haunts.

–

And yes, Death,

As Winter brings

To those who succumb to frigid winds,

And those lost from shelter.

–

We spiral into the Darkness,

Where we barely draw breath,

Conserve our energy,

And stare outside at such

A blank palette.

–

Stilling ourselves,

We draw closer to low fires,

Scratch our dried skin

Like a monk in a hair shirt,

And, with time and patience–

Spiral back into

the light of Spring.

–

Jane Kohut-Bartels

Copyrighted, 2014

originally published in “Pitcher Of Moon”, Createspace, Amazon.com, 2014