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January into February, March

into spring, stepping high

over mud and ruts and late

snow into April and May;

may we all feel that warmth

and renewal of this new season

changing our old world gone round

and round, again, still, its own successive

cycles and the cycles we create for ourselves

but a metamorphosis refining us, defining us

in the midst of summer changing, too,

into December, another year ahead, moving us

onward, forward through the lives we choose

to live, tempered by time, and transformed,

transcending, perhaps, ourselves.

Like a cat sleeping

 the snow curls into itself,

silent

under the tree outside my window,

the wind now

            a soft purr.

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What’s consistent now is not

the wind, nor the snow and ice

and cold, not the winter skies’ constant

change, but the birds at my feeder, feeding,

patient, waiting their turn to snatch

a sunflower’s seed and fly off, returning

again and again, busying themselves, chickadee

and nuthatch, the downy, the raucous jay

and cooing doves scavenging below, feasting.

Rekindled

Winter’s season settles in

            with the lengthening of days,

the light rekindled, returning,

            this gift of the solstice’s promise

and the cycling of the seasons,

            the cycling of our own lives, too,

                        rekindled.