© Steve King
All rights reserved
As
I look out on winter, I recall
the
night we took that long and rutted road
away
from a familiar highway
to
peer beyond a veil of swirling snow
on
the expanse of vast Ontario.
We
paused along the hard and bitter shore
imagining
some far horizon there.
An easy reach, or so it seemed to me,
An easy reach, or so it seemed to me,
enfolding
our discrete eternity.
We
strode on currents hidden through the ice
and
glossed the secrets of that unknown depth;
two
unlikely figures setting forth,
to
mark a presence with each random step.
There
came no warming aftermaths to this,
nor
frozen moments halting our design:
one
interlude supplanted by a next,
enough
to match the reasons of the time.
The way it was in winter, one day when...
And
now is winter so much part of me
that
I can just recall that early glow.
The
fires are banking now; and even so,
I
still can say that it was well enough,
when
once we lingered far from strut and show,
to
dance with our desires in the snow.
A new poem for d'Verse OLN
Fond memories warm the coldest season and inspire beautiful poetry. This is gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteA lovely cadence of your winter memories Steve ~ The trails around the lake are wonderfully tended & preserved until now ~ I can't imagine though walking near and around the shores of the lake during winter ~ At its height, the lake is frozen, like Niagara Falls ~ I do know however some people love the winter show & embraces the season well ~ And in another meaning, I like the imagery of fires banking in your winter season ~
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this, smiles ~ Grace
Ah Steve, Your words, your imagery, have taken me to this place where I can see those footprints in the snow. Superb indeed!
ReplyDelete(FYI, you've already read and commented on my OLN share when posted earlier this month-for which I thank you again!)
A very moving poem..in the folds of winter
ReplyDeleteremembering days secrets of unknown depths
beyond the veils of snow is a place of calm I imagine..
nice, like falling snow and a fine ending
ReplyDeleteLovely fond write of the magic that is snow in winter.
ReplyDeleteAnna :o]
lovely memories frozen in time and winter beauty...nice work, as always :) ~jackie~
ReplyDeleteFootprints in the snow begets memories fading with spring ahead! Great write Steve!
ReplyDeleteHank
Wow.. this is really powerful... the winter can be both a dirge and a blessing... the cadence is mezmerizing in this
ReplyDeleteThis is in your very best style, Steve, redolent with all the flavors of the past, what would almost be grandeur if it were not so informed with light and movement, and the vagaries of a flickering, banked-fire imagery shedding a subtle glow rather than a searchlight on the past, in which more than what light can reveal is seen. Beautiful writing, superb language throughout--just a joy to read, especially mired in the poetic burnout of this trying poem a day thing, when reading others' work is difficult (because it always seems so much better than what one is struggling with)--here not at all, very inspiring and freeing to read something this good.
ReplyDeleteThis is so beautiful, a lovely journey on the way to that fabulous ending.
ReplyDeleteI love this, Steve... especially the ending.
ReplyDeleteHi Steve, I warn you first I am commenting from a mobile device, which is great but troublesome on blogger for me--
ReplyDeleteThis is such a beautiful poem--the meter is crafted with such care that it flows with great naturalness and yet always with a beautiful music--one does not ever have to force a line or rhyme when reading, or contort the pace to make it simply feet. In this sence, it is almost like a walk of sorts--as the pace is so human. The content is equally very well crafted and yet very natural and human--there are many beautiful descriptions--walking over the frozen current, the veil of the swirling snow--the way that the fires are banked, the being just able to recall, the side road--I am afraid to look back too much at the poem as each time I do, my comment does something weird-- The strut and show of the end recalls the Tomorrow tomorrow petty pace speech of Macbeth and it carries the echoes of looking back and what our lives feel like they amount to--but the whole image of the freeze--the discrete infinity of the future--I know I don't have that right--but it is very striking--that sense that we have when young that all is leading to something specific and then looking back we reallize it just led forward in a more randome kind of way and that what we thought was perhaps not enough was in fact much more than.
Anyway, much beautiful here --I am not getting it all--the sense of leaving a mark in the snow--the kind of slight freeze--barrier that is always between two people--all just beautifully delicately done. Something to be proud of. Thanks. k.
Just tried to add an excuse for typos and a further comment and lost the whole thing--so sticking to my (never-used) outlawyer identy--I wanted to say that the lines about interludes "supplanting " each other--great word--is wonderful and the "reasons of the time"--==that is such a telling and accurate phrase.
DeleteAnyway, sorry for the disjointedness of this--my natural fragmentation augmented by the infernal device. (My computer is overheating a great deal so I tend to opt for these devices more than I should.) K.
this piece is entrancing...so much so I was drawn to read it over again in the hopes of glimpsing once again the mystery behind the veil.
ReplyDeleteExquisite flow, meter, imagery, spatial relationship both external and internal...the sense of whiteness and coldness infused in the piece without mentioning either the contrast of depth in time and closeness because of depth of field enhances the poem - gives the poem depth while keep the reader poised at the edge. Excellent piece.
ReplyDeleteI love this poem....it caused me to reminisce of places I had not thought about in ages....each interlude surpassed by the next...;)
ReplyDeleteLove this.. enfolding eternity and dance with our desires:)
ReplyDeleteThat picture too.
It gave me a chill at the end, the nostalgia and the thought that certain life moments can be so life forming. Thanks for the view.
ReplyDeleteThis has the feel of a lovely time past. The final stanza is superb, with, "winter so a part of me" and "fires banking low."
ReplyDeleteHoping that my last comment didn't get eaten by the ethernet--Love, love this piece Steve
ReplyDelete