Is Winter Over Yet?

What is it about the end of January in the northeast that brings a spark of expectation that it might get warm again?

Just in that last few days the sustaining white of snow on my lower meadow has melted in patches and the pond ice is thinking about it. Meadows are clear forecasters.

When it’s white it’s cold enough to hold the snow. When it’s warmish there are patches of matted brown grass. When the pond freezes it’s very cold. How simple is that?

There is a portion of a poem I wrote many years ago that seems to fit this post. I will title it, “Season’s Change.”

Winter’s clime and its crispy breath of cold
Bring shivers to a pond to freeze to ice
With strength, so skaters’ strides it will uphold,
Gliding on the slippery paradise.

Soon comes the warmth of springtime’s longer light
To melt the winter’s hold into a sheen
Of glass, erasing skaters’ grooves of white —
Engravings on the ice when frozen clean.

Throughout the spring the pond becomes alive
With harmonies of life who make it home.
The dragonflies and fish in swarms arrive
To nest beside the tadpoles’ bubbled foam.

Young April nights hear movements to abide,
As whistling peepers pipe their mating call
And turtles roust from out their winter hide.
The rustles in the dark — a creature’s crawl.

When summer’s sun rests easy on the pond,
The buzzing of communities abound.
Cicadas and the crickets call beyond
The water’s edge, astounding with their sound.

Then comes the fall and paintings by the frost
Cast colors on the water near the shore,
Festooning red and yellow tints till lost
Beneath the shine where eyes cannot explore.

Then comes winter again and we’re back to where we started. Life is kind of like that, isn’t it?