The winter confounds me.
I circle above its grayness.
I turn my eyes at a ceiling
without an artist
to paint summer time,
our celestial reverence.
But it is beautiful.
It has a purity and silence
that humbles me.
My windows open to hear a whisper.
I pull off my hood
to feel its hands on my head,
the waft of a cold caress.
Tomorrow is the end of this old year.
It grew silver in a twinkling.
Things flowered and grew.
Good times with the children
in their water pool.
Watching them grow
in the play yard of the school.
Weddings and passings.
A quiet year that earth grew
the chapel above me.
That the trees reached further
toward each other.
That I saw a falcon perch above me
and I stood quiet before his solitude,
and kneeled inside.
I do not know everything I must know
before my year ends.
The winter challenges me
to paint its branches,
to put the colors of creation
back on its ceiling.
To sing songs for its quiet places,
and plant seeds everywhere
for harvesting.
And I wonder,
how does one pick up a brush,
write a word,
put stone on stone
and make a wall,
without the faith of a child’s heart
that something returns our awe,
and loves us?