Stock up on Winter Poetry
Poetry (pen) Pals #46
Hey,
I don’t think this needs much of an introduction. Poetry on Winter. It’s time.
Which one is your favourite? Do you have another favourite you want to share in the comments? I hope so.
Your Weekly Writing Prompt:
A nice gentle one for this week. Because, well, this time of year. And also - sestinas last week, phew.
On a live journaling session recently I found myself musing this question:
What happens in Winter that ONLY happens in Winter? Or is largely attributed to Winter.
I wrote about the fact you can see warm air, you can see something that the rest of the year is mostly invisible. Well, in the UK anyway. I was mainly thinking of our breath and the pillows of steam bursting from pipes on the sides of the houses down our road. This is quite an obvious one but that’s ok.
I started there and then I moved on to flittering through some of these questions:
What does this mean? What does it remind me of? What does it tell me beyond the obvious? What does it make me imagine? How might others (who are not me) view this same thing? What happens when I just keep on writing freely and see where I end up?
I wrote about how interesting it is that something can exist when we can’t see it. I wrote about our attention and what draws it in. I wrote about warm radiators and dry socks! I recalled my young son panicking that a house was on fire because he thought it was smoke.
And then, once I felt I had two ‘parts’ of a thing, I played with that a bit. I played with developing my random scribbling into a poem - a poem that itself developed from a literal description of a Winter occurrence into to something different and deeper.
And I didn’t get much further :)
There’s no poem to share yet. But the playing was fluid and Wintery and whimsical. Just what I needed.
I’m going to pick it back up again this week. So I thought I’d share the invitation.
Nelly x
Not a poem but I really love these words from Katherine May’s gorgeous book ‘Wintering:’ 🩵
'"When I started feeling the drag of winter, I began to treat myself like a favoured child: with kindness and love. I assumed my needs were reasonable and that my feelings were signals of something important. I kept myself well fed and made sure I was getting enough sleep. I …spent time doing things that soothed me. I asked myself: What is this winter all about? I asked myself: What change is coming?"
Desert Light in Winter
——
First, we bundle up like pros
when the mercury drops below forty,
our desert blood having thinned
to something closer to sunset light—
that same light that sets the mountains ablaze
each evening in impossible shades of rose and gold.
The winter sunrise arrives like a watercolor,
painting the clouds in layers of amber and violet,
while we clutch our coffee mugs with gloved hands,
watching our breath form halos in the dawn.
The cold makes the light sharper somehow,
as if the clarity of winter air
could slice the sky into ribbons of color.
But nothing prepares us for that January morning
when the snow clouds part at daybreak,
and the whole valley glows like an opal—
pearl-white ground reflecting coral-pink sky,
every Joshua tree wearing diamonds,
every saguaro crowned in crystalline light,
while we abandon our desert dignity,
dancing beneath the painted heavens.
Watch the great migration:
parents calling in "sick" to work,
children pressed against windows,
neighbors who never speak
now gathering in driveways at dusk,
when the setting sun turns snow to rose quartz
and sets each flake afire with dying light.
The mountains wear their sunset colors
like royal robes: purple, amber, crimson,
their snowy peaks holding the last rays
long after the valley has dimmed to blue.
We stand in our yards, necks craned back,
trying to catch snowflakes that sparkle
like falling stars in the fading light.
Tomorrow, the sun will return to rule,
the snow will retreat to memory,
but for now, we are witnesses
to this rare convergence of elements—
desert light and winter snow,
painting the sky in watercolors
while we remember how to wonder,
how to welcome the impossible,
how to believe in magic
falling softly from a painted sky.