A poem for a snowy day

This poem is part of the series An American Four Seasons that I wrote for Seattle Symphony's project, All Of Us Belong. The poem is inspired by Charles Ive's A New England Holiday symphony and it is a response to the first movement, Washington's Birthday.

Washington’s Winter

Winter’s taciturn realm asks nothing.

Crowned in hushed browns and somber greens,

it rules by turns with quiet song

then with pummeling winds obeying no one.

It will be dark soon everyday for months

Color hibernates, leaving behind

its essence to purr

in everything oblique light touches.

In the hush, it asks us to see, and see again,

to hear the echo of step

over moss covered ground,

to peek into ourselves

and consider roads not taken

and those taken and why.

Winter’s austere architecture

reveals in trees their armature

and in us a chance to behold

the dried reeds edging our heart.

A man named Washington

set for posterity an example

by willingly electing

a shade of retirement

over political might.

Winter winds do whip

the pubic madness of frozen filigree twigs,

but come summer each branch

will blush in apple glow.

Nothing is so simple as it first appears.

One minute violin strings coax

memories from their tenderest dens

and in the next, pluck

raucous joy at a winter’s barn dance.

What shows on the surface fallow,

conceals a gathering of creative force.

Slow cadence of winter days,

a tune by and by, to awaken.

Robert Frost – The Road Not Taken

George Washington – “shade of retirement” from Washington’s Farewell Address To the people of the United States

Overheard at Dorothy Day House - “It will be dark soon everyday for months”

Charles Ives – “winter’s barn dance” from Score notes