Poetry Friday: Season Song

I've finally found the perfect poetry book for my attention span! It's Splinters: A Book of Very Short Poems, edited by Michael Harrison (Oxford, 1988). Here's a lovely verse for us now, on the verge of the Winter Solstice:

Season Song

Spring stirs slowly, shuffles, hops;
Summer dances close behind.
Autumn is a jostling crowd
but Winter creeps into your mind.

– Judith Nicholls

It does, doesn't it? Winter feels to my brain like that cold air seeping through the gap in the window frame. I don't know it's there until I'm chilled to the core. Brr, ugh, and brr again.

At the same time, I'm touched by winter's beauty. Walking around the neighborhood, blanketed with snow, there's such a hush. Except for the steady roar of the lake churning against the beach, turning to ice.

My favorite winter book is The Dark Is Rising, by Susan Cooper. It captures winter's dichotomy - the sinister chill of the atmosphere and the gaiety of the holidays - so perfectly.

Catch the rest of this week's Poetry Friday Round-Up at The Miss Rumphius Effect.