Winter is Love's Season
Dedicated to Tom Fisher
How slowly winter
Yields dark to growing daylight;
Days are lengthening,
But two or three more cold months
Before winter melts away.
Some would welcome spring
To burst quickly on the stage,
Ending snows and cold,
But I have learned to treasure
Winter’s long, slow exiting.
As with winter’s pace,
So with love’s slow maturing;
In retrospect,
What lovers do not recall
Joyfully their tender days?
Winter is love’s season,
When deep below earth’s surface
Roots are spreading out,
Preparing for spring’s rich life,
Unseen, unknown in winter.
Storm replaces storm--
Winter drags her frozen feet
Slowly, fruitlessly
To weary souls impatient
With nature’s erratic ways.
Precious are the days
As aged winter crawls slowly,
Teaching us patience,
For love’s long-lasting winter
Prunes and frees the spirit.
Long winter chastens
And cleanses the new lover’s heart
Of self’s excesses,
Killing off diseased branches,
So that healthy growth may thrive.
Remind me, winter,
When friends’ chilly moods would wound
Immaturities,
That love not frozen by ice
Is unworthily called love.
Strengthen me, winter,
To accept and to cherish
My friends as they are,
Trusting that divine nature
Has reasons beyond our ken.
—Wm. P. McKane
7 February 2020
Yields dark to growing daylight;
Days are lengthening,
But two or three more cold months
Before winter melts away.
Some would welcome spring
To burst quickly on the stage,
Ending snows and cold,
But I have learned to treasure
Winter’s long, slow exiting.
As with winter’s pace,
So with love’s slow maturing;
In retrospect,
What lovers do not recall
Joyfully their tender days?
Winter is love’s season,
When deep below earth’s surface
Roots are spreading out,
Preparing for spring’s rich life,
Unseen, unknown in winter.
Storm replaces storm--
Winter drags her frozen feet
Slowly, fruitlessly
To weary souls impatient
With nature’s erratic ways.
Precious are the days
As aged winter crawls slowly,
Teaching us patience,
For love’s long-lasting winter
Prunes and frees the spirit.
Long winter chastens
And cleanses the new lover’s heart
Of self’s excesses,
Killing off diseased branches,
So that healthy growth may thrive.
Remind me, winter,
When friends’ chilly moods would wound
Immaturities,
That love not frozen by ice
Is unworthily called love.
Strengthen me, winter,
To accept and to cherish
My friends as they are,
Trusting that divine nature
Has reasons beyond our ken.
—Wm. P. McKane
7 February 2020