Crystallizing

I only have to travel a few hours north of home to still find the early morning hours between midnight and sunrise to be more like winter than spring despite what the calendar tells me.

This morning, further north, but still spring,
there were ice crystals on the rocks.


It doesn’t take much change to make
things look different from the recent past.


The future – one or two seasons away?

The Winter of My Content

this mild winter, equinox a line away
on the wall calendar, hurrying snow flurries
that will not stay, friends and family
home safe and healthy on this day,
content in this moment, hopeful future moments
.

Photo: Julia Volk

My poem’s title alludes to the line from Shakespeare’s Richard III, “Now is the winter of our discontent…” and I also think of how John Steinbeck used the line for the title of his The Winter of Our Discontent