Receive This Winter

Now after Christmastide, beyond Epiphany,
When garlands are unwound, and the holly falls;
When no more the carolers come through starlight,
And the farthest bringer of gifts is home,
And the gifts, with things we owned before,
Are taken for granted almost as our fingers;
Now, it is winter.
Winter bears down
Strong with deceit, storming against
The dwindling night, the longer day.
All day it storms. We wake to the spatter
Of sleet down the chimney flue. Cold draws
On the floor from a cellar window. We shudder
At the bang of a blind, at a hurled shingle.

The heart is numb with the reiteration
Of winter. A thaw, the glittering day
With icicle flow in a drip-hurry-run
Through moist noon air, was only an interlude
Of winter; not spring. Snow fell
Again at night. The heart is numb.

Be not betrayed to fantasy in numbness.
Wrap reality against the cold;
Shield memory from snow illusion;
Shelter the gift, the actual wonder.
Apprehend the fuller arc of the sun,
Though undiscerned, and the ready impalpable Turning of the year.
Receive this winter.
The now sequestered heart is given
Time to commune with reality, to learn
How sound may be the timber of her house.