Winter, life forces in the Snow

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

For some people, winter is a time for looking back at kinder, happier, better, days, especially those who may find themselves alone at times like Christmas and other festive and/or religious occasions meant to be a time of coming together in a spirit of love and peace. Yet love-and-peace is neither seasonal nor an excuse for making out all is well with the world when it's not, but an all year round perennial, no excuses; we have but to believe in it and be prepared to play our part - big or small - to make it happen

(Photo taken from the Internet)

(Photo taken from the Internet)

The trick, so I'm told by wiser folks than me, is to draw on that same feeling for love-and-peace that once inspired us, and let it inspire us into renewal;  just as spring always follows winter so, too, that springtime of the heart if we but choose to let it go there. Sometimes, we don't need to colour things simply because - if we want it to be - the truth is plain to see in glorious black and white; colour it by all means, but we need to let our better senses do that for us.

WINTER, LIFE FORCES IN THE SNOW

Earth and sky coloured ominous

one midnight in midwinter

when I looked out of my window

to see a heavy snow falling,

thought I heard an owl calling me

(No, mistaken, surely ...?)

Then I saw it, silvery bird gliding

phantom-like, summoning
images of a lace tablecloth gracing

our table, oh, so many years ago,

when love-and-peace would spread
its wings and voice its pain

No family now, only a scattering

of memories like winter snow

piling on a branch by my window,

heaped higher even than regrets

these eyes glaring back at me deny

(or could it be they lie?)

Gone, the owl now, weary wings

but wistful, fleeting, moments

like characters in a classic movie
colouring themselves shades
of some broken rainbow colouring
decades of wishful thinking

The wind is up. A blizzard throws

an angry net over glaring traffic

on the night shift, testing the weary

and fainthearted, suggesting

an omnipresence if only to make up
for any human shortfall

Will nature stand by and let owl die

or lend it such sanctuary as found

under a cosy duvet inviting us to close

the eyes, bury the face, leave owl

winging winter's worst, not our fault
if that's just the way it is?

The heart, it yearns for the colours
of spring to bring it back to life,
recover perspectives long since flown,
comfort where there is but pain
for the way life was before its landscape
changed so ... or was it me, us?

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2018

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears under the title 'Shot in Black and White'  Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005.]