The Catkin Edge

Catkins swell the tips of alder 

and red-fringed auras of riverside maple 

soften the bare edge of winter.

 

A new breeze lifts the stale grip 

of late-stage February. Deep within 

the dead brown layers, spirits gather. 

I wish these days would hurry on – 

my mother’s presence pierces years to conjure sun 

and wrap the world in warmer tones. 

And I hear his gentle rejoinder, 

that faux-scold timbre, tinged with a twinkle – 

Don’t wish your only life away. 

Dad was the ever-enduring hills. She, 

an effervescent air-kiss, the smiles and dreams 

of springs to come. Now both are gone. 

I throw on a warm layer, 

zip inside my black hoodie, and huddle 

out back in a broken pool of light, 

wishing with mother for everwarmth 

and winter’s end, but feeling my father’s calm 

as if from distance. Stay 

and wash my soul in cold breeze 

beneath the bare-branch blackbird tree 

on catkin edge of wintertime. 

Winter flock of grackles and red-winged blackbirds

Riverside Maple, March 2014

Cold Rain Comes

When low skies gather gray on gray  

enfolding days in dim light 

then ‘spring’ is a sterile doctrine 

and ‘summer’ is just a theory 

of celestial alignment 

shrouded in the winter mind 

and cold rain comes before the spring.

Once there was a season filled 

with languid days that seemed to stretch forever.

But fresh mornings fade 

and all endeavors end at last.

Summer grace encounters fall 

then founders on the winter mind 

where cold rain comes instead of spring.

With God and wisdom filed and stored, 

our angel nature now ignored, 

then what can lead a frozen soul 

from tight-argued passion 

to kind-hearted action

breaking through the winter mind? 

A cold rain comes to usher spring.

So when the low gray gathers hold 

enfolding lives in dim light; 

when what was vital cracks and dries 

and old achievements ossify,  

from broken days embrace the night, 

engage the frigid winter mind – 

After cold rain comes the spring.

"Ice on Leaves"
by David Noah,
Winterville, Georgia