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