Savoring at mid-winter…

So, here we are at mid-winter. Halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. Imbolc. Celebration of St. Brigid, patron saint of poetry. Thirty more minutes of light in the day since December’s dark night. But who’s counting? Can we pause here? Can we release the yearning for more – sun, warmth, light, green – and savor the quiet, the cozy, the stillness of this moment? Pull out some more root vegetables from storage for soup? Settle in to finish, or start, that book that has patiently waited on the side table for a tender caress? Set aside January’s ambitions and just rest … and smile at the faintest stirrings of the season?

“First Snow” – Mary Oliver

The snow
began here
this morning and all day
continued, its white
rhetoric everywhere
calling us back to why, how,
whence such beauty and what
the meaning; such
an oracular fever! flowing
past windows, an energy it seemed
would never ebb, never settle
less than lovely! and only now,
deep into night,
it has finally ended.

The silence
is immense,
and the heavens still hold
a million candles; nowhere
the familiar things:
stars, the moon,
the darkness we expect
and nightly turn from.

Trees
glitter like castles
of ribbons, the broad fields
smolder with light, a passing
creekbed lies
heaped with shining hills;
and though the questions
that have assailed us all day
remain—not a single
answer has been found—
walking out now
into the silence and the light
under the trees,
and through the fields,
feels like one.”