My Ode to Winter

On By Swarn GillIn Prose and Poetry

In silence you approach, slowly darkening days,
Autumn arrays of color fade to deathly brown,
Precious skies of blue are replaced by grays,
Sharp winds blow across frozen ground.

And then one day you bring all to standing still,
I watch as my breath, eager to show it’s alive,
Disappears hopelessly into air it can’t fill,
Icy touch on the shoulder of all that thrived.

And what more can we do who wait?
Where night comes early, but feels so late.
Hope for snow to settle on barren limbs?
A touch of white when all seems grim.
Snowy blanket covers the harvest’s reaping,
Lets us pretend the Earth is happily sleeping.

Each slippery step on landscape so bleak,
As we drudge through our lives week after week,
You take no pleasure as you tally the score,
We see what you’ve taken and you hunger for more,
And just when you drain our heat to burn our skin,
Though you love your endings, in the end you won’t win.

For when the sun hides for its longest hours,
We gather with friend and kin to warm with love,
With charitable hearts gloomy Death does cower,
Mocked by hopeful songs of the mourning dove.

New Year’s rejoicing as the sun climbs higher,
Dreams of future gains and not what we lack,
You snap and bite at us, even as you tire,
As snow melts into thawing soil, life bites back.

12 thoughts on “My Ode to Winter”

  1. Interesting how you changed up the rhyme scheme towards the end. Surprised my brain who was swaying with the rhythm. It was a good surprise, like when your listening to a progressive tune for the first time.

    “Where night comes early, but feels so late.”

    I love this, and the fact that you expand stylistic boundaries.

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    1. Thank you Victoria! Actually the rhyme scheme is the same in the beginning as it is in the end, but yes the middle has more tempo. I felt like changing tempo was important, because winter to me seems to be a greater fluctuation of emotions. Also winter itself for me is punctuated by awesome beauty but also extreme dreariness. Sometimes it is gorgeous, but less so when you step out into it, other times the ugly brown can be a downer, but if that’s because it’s a warm day, that can be a wonderful respite from the cold. The slower tempo also felt more reflective and introspective…has more pauses for the time we take to think of the past or look to the future.

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      1. “. . . fluctuation of emotions . . . awesome beauty but also extreme dreariness . . .”

        I love that you pay attention to such details. It’s interesting that I didn’t notice the transition to a different tempo when it went from ABAB to AABB. The sudden change didn’t stand out, but it did (for me) when you went from AABB to ABAB.

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        1. That is interesting…it probably means that my rhyming flowed better early on, and the rhyming sucked at the end. lol

          And today is one of those days where it was absolutely beautiful after the snowfall and the skies cleared, but now wind has loosed much of it from the branches and it is going to be stupidly cold tomorrow…I’m not looking forward to it. lol

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  2. I truly admire your talent for poetry. 🙂

    All my good intentions/desires to become more creative seem to have vanished. Not sure whether it’s the winter doldrums or simply lack of inspiration. Or perhaps laziness. In any event, my new website languishes. *sigh*

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  3. I enjoyed this Swarn. Perhaps because it was easier FOR ME (an inexperienced poetry reader) to follow and understand, unlike some poems with foreign words and meanings. Thank you. And my thanks too for reminding me (in unseasonably warm Texas, 2 winters in a row) that it is winter, or is supposed to seem like winter… in the middle of December! 😮

    I’m no expert, but I think you are becoming an accomplished poet Sir. 😉

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    1. Thank you Professor! I realize that a winter poem is somewhat regional given that places like Texas would not have as much snow or the same level of severity as further north. This culminates a lot of feelings from adolescence as well growing in Canada. A far cry from winter in the south, even if it was climatically more normal there!

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      1. Yes. LOL I do want to show my support for your poetry, not only as very novice poetry reader, but also as your friend, cyber-friend though it may be. You will just need to be very patient with my supportive comments I have no real clue how to construct! LOL 😉 ❤

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