Morning Snow…..1.26.15
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Morning flakes of snow
sifting down, touch the black pool
disappear
Grey orchard limbs
last year’s withered apples
traced with snow
A cardinal alights
on a snowy branch—suddenly
the old apples glow
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–Quilla
Two Nights before Christmas…..
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Two Nights Before Christmas….
Beyond winter dusk in a country graveyard,
I sit on a hilltop bench watching night fall.
A wet south wind is blowing.
The short day’s last low rays are gone
behind the mountains, disappearing
into the vast darkness.
Above the state prison half a mile away
bright orange sodium-vapor lights glow
the undersides of low clouds blowing past.
Out on the four-lane, a fast river of cars
roars home from work and shopping.
The empty flag rope slaps and rings
against the metal pole.
Night wind rustles the black fields
of artificial flowers.
From the tall marble statue of Christ,
both outreaching hands have been broken off.
Among the rows of stones, pathetic little lights
blink plastic angels, Santas, Christmas trees
and other sentimental trinkets.
But the spirits of the dead are gone.
The siren of an ambulance screams and screams,
flashing through rainy snarling traffic—
some hurting frightened soul.
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–Quilla
December Third
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Hazy winter sun, setting:
bone-white bloodstained sycamores
reaching over the windy lake
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An old man stands on the wavering dock
near the upturned summer boats.
Watches the lowering sun, cold gray waters
lapping, lapping at the posts
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–Quilla
Like a Small Child
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Like a Small Child
This morning, still waking
I go squinting, like a small child
to the upstairs window—
tall birches, a few feet away
each bare branch and twig
glistening
the long night’s frost-flower petals
fast melting.
The risen sun is shattering
these bristling bonds of ice,
brief crystals of light,
fallen from the winter stars.
Such large cold drops fall
from the naked shining trees:
gleaming strings of water music,
frozen globes of molten silver, prisms
broken in the low December light.
Even these fractured forms of glory
radiate with crisp certainty,
as only a small child can be
certain: Someone is living behind
even within this very radiance and song,
these long shadows, and winter silences.
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“And He called a child to Himself and set him
before them, and said “Truly, I say to you
unless you are converted and become like children,
you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven”
–Jesus, Matthew 18: 2-4
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“At that time Jesus said, “I praise You, Father,
Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden
these things from the wise and intelligent
and have revealed them to infants.
Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing
in Your sight”
—Jesus, Matthew 11: 25-26
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Pausing, in December….
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Pausing, in December….
I look up, breathing deeply
resting briefly
from the heavy work.
Around me, empty forest
absolutely quiet.
There is no wind.
No creature rustles the dry leaves.
The cold milk sky is featureless
without shadow, silk-white.
Tall poplars stand, perfect stillness.
Leafless silhouettes, each twig etched
against the sky with Wyeth’s driest brush.
Both spring and summer, autumn
even—all the separate fleeting
glories of flower, seed and leaf—
know nothing of these winter bones
of beauty, alive with quiet strength,
arms of grace, ever underneath.
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–Quilla
February fifth
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Winter Moon
The last of the day’s fire
fades into purple mountains.
In the broken limbs of a tall dead oak
Venus sparkles, like the truth.
The full February moon rises
through thin clouds,
an opal glowing on dark cloth.
Soft halos brighten the coming night.
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–Quilla
Crows and a Rainbow
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Warm mist blows through the winter trees.
Sensing Spring in the distance, sparrows
and finches start their trilling.
Flocks of crows approach far off,
tossed like torn black scarves of sorrow.
Late-morning sun breaks through,
a moment of silver opens the heavy clouds.
A rainbow to the darkened north
shimmers, a luminous promise
(or is it just a myth?)
the colors of God, glowing
in the winter mist.
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January Twenty-ninth
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Standing still, on the hillside
just before the cold sun sets,
what are the words
to give you this moment—
how the golden light is fading
on the gnarled grey trunks
of the apple trees?
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January Twenty-fifth
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Healing
After her knee surgery
I walk slowly with my mother
and her cane, the gravel path
beside the lake.
The winter sun is already down
into the trees.
Cold wind blows the fountain spray.
Resting on a bench, we talk,
and long moments, quiet with each other.
The old need to fix and criticize
is gone. Below us, a dead oak limb
drifts into reeds along the bank.
Although we have no feed to give them
the ducks swim in close, gabbing
and preening, as if putting on a show.
Feeding on the muddy bottom
they turn their bottoms to the sky.
We laugh out loud, together.
The brief steam of our laughter floats away,
leaving us a quiet, winter joy.
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–Quilla
The Junco
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The Junco
This morning early, the hard frozen land
resembled a Wyeth scape—stark raw hills
—bearded faces scraped with a skift of salty snow,
blown across the mountains before dawn.
But now the wide brushstrokes of thin white ice
are gone. Except little drifts the sun kept hiding,
iron-blue shadow places.
One gray Junco is perched in the naked red
blueberry limbs. She gathers a few rays of warmth
from the hazy setting January sun
Then flits away to the darkening woods.
Two white feathers in her charcoal tail
flash like scissors in the gloaming winter light.
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–Quilla
Third day, 2012, Haiku
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Frozen cornstalk fields:
shards of ancient pottery
long shadows
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Frozen birdbath
an inch of snowdust
scratched with bird tracks
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Coal
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Three million summers
–a deep fern forest
warms our winter night
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Fierce winter wind
old oaks groan,
remembering
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Making pancakes
and listening: no small thing
to be a father
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How the cold sun
glitters, each needle shines
the great somber pines
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Cold wind, winter sun
tall black pines, tossing
shadows on the page
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snow storm blows in:
rows of stones and buried bones
vanish, into white
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Wrinkled hands
folded, winter dusk
snow stings the windows
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December Fifth
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Splinters of Winter Light
December morning, my footsteps crunch
the crystalled grass.
Looking up through frozen birches, and beyond
my arms lift their hands: palms, thin fingers
stretch with praise to the winter sun
splintering rays through icy limbs.
I give my self afresh—to the Risen One.
The whole domed canvas of wide sky
shines winter blue, brushed white strokes
of high cirrus: windy tails of ghost-horses
like wisps of spirit running, slow motion
across the empty skies of time.
One Chickadee arrives, thirsty
and perturbed at the frozen pool.
She pecks the plate of ice
till it breaks open, just a bit.
She sips and sings, and flies away.
In the far meadow two deer
are standing in the open
a moment sculpted, like statues.
A poise of grace and fear
their blue shadows stretch out long and thin
down the frosted hill.
Something frightens them. They bound off,
disappear in the shadowed wood.
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–Quilla
Ruach 333, by Quilla 