Poetry Corner: How Winter Blooms

POETRY CORNER

– 12/06/17

Hosted by Kathabela Wilson

The holiday season always seems to instill moods memories and thoughtfulness. How we connect with one another at this time, warm one another hearts, and maintain ourselves, surviving difficulties, is a special challenge now. Through it we gather the energy for future blooms. Be inspired by the strength and creative power, vision, resilience and artistry of these fine poets work.

~ Kathabela

“Token” – Oil on linen (50x66inches) by Michele L. Harvey

Michele L. Harvey

The winter, whether in her country or city home, has always held great beauty in its sparseness for the poet Michele L. Harvey. There is always some clue that there’s life beneath the snow and that death isn’t what it seems. To Michele, winter is merely a necessary pause or respite in the commotion of life. There’s Christmas lights to cheer the shortest day or a ready bench under a spreading tree which betokens summer.

joining
my neighborhood to the next
Christmas lights
danced softly by the wind
and the year’s first snow

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wagging her finger
she says, learn from the best
grandma’s recipe
to add an extra helping
of love to every meal

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the reckless slide
headlong into holidays
nameless remains
are added to the others
in my freezer’s icy vault

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with each new day
the mounting news of misdeeds
I draw my coat
more tightly around me
to face the bitter wind

Poet-artist Michele L. Harvey winters​ in New York City and​ summers​ in Hamilton, NY. With her poems and images, she asks us to search out the small joys winter has to offer (such as sharing comfort food made with love,) and to always remember it too will pass, even as the weather dips below zero.

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“Pattern” (34x50inches) by Michele L. Harvey.

Marilyn Fleming

December

The farmhouse I grew up in, along with eight siblings, was heated by two kerosene stoves. One was in the dining room, the main room of the house, and one in the front room. The front room was rarely heated except perhaps on a Sunday afternoon on the rare occasion when we had relatives over for dinner. The only warmth in the bedrooms upstairs was heavy hand made quilts and an open door at the bottom of the stairs. But most importantly, we slept two to a bed warming each other’s feet.

As long as I can remember, mother had a Christmas cactus in the west window of the cold ‘front room’. Year after year, the cactus blossoms emanated cheer in an otherwise bleak time of the year.

my youth
stepping out of the shadows
cold moon
how we dressed in front
of the potbelly

Marilyn Fleming is a Wisconsin short form poet and sumi-e haiga artist. Her special interests are Asian forms of poetry, (haiku tanka and haibun.) Check her website to see some of her recent work.

Christmas Cactus (Photo – Marilyn Fleming).

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