Solmonath

A poem for you this day. Solmonað is the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of February. It translates to “mud month.” False springs appear in deep winter – a tease of green as the snow falls again. Restless, we count robins – or are they sparrows playing games? We long for buds and blossoms under a Lent-grey sky […]

Faces of Winter

It is not enough for me to say or hear “I hate winter.” Every year, I face the season with the same dogged goal to appreciate Winter. Not to say it’s easy. I could do without the bone-chilling winds and the dry air, wet socks and flavorless vegetables. And clearing off the car and driving […]

Frost

Frost is nature’s graffiti. Jack Frost came in the night and painted on the window panes with his index finger. I imagine him as Peter Pan’s doppelganger cousin. An ageless mischievous boy who makes his art and flicks away into the night, thrives on the bitter cold and eats snow. He might also be responsible for […]

January Live-Joys

  January. I always thought the name had a cold, funereal sound. It implies a silence broken only by gusts of frigid, snow-laden winds crashing against windowpanes.

Clean Pages

Every December 31st and January 1st I find myself floating on a sort of New Year’s euphoria. Suddenly, time becomes a clean, white, empty slate upon which we can write, a blanket of newly-fallen snow. The possibilities are endless, and the first footsteps to mark that landscape are special. I’m always in a hurry to begin.