The Longest Winter

 

 

Poem © 2020 by Joyce Mason

 

We avoided winter like the plague

until a plague gave us a winter so long;

there was no escaping it.

 

We cannot dodge, deny or wish away

the All-Year Winter of 2020.

We cannot avoid the present.

 

The effects that go from zero to death,

the bodies in makeshift morgues,

the devastating symptoms that linger for some.

We can no longer in good conscience escape orders to stay home,

to bask in enough quiet to hear ourselves think,

or to mask whatever smiles we have left.

We live in a prison of care for ourselves and others

with no promise of release short of

a one-year sentence.

Some of us are in solitary.

 

But do we really want a jail break?

To turn down the present,

the gift of an adventure in inner space?

This year, so winter-like, casts its shadow

over the other seasons magnifying all of winter’s qualities,

quadrupled in time to prepare us for what’s next

as our whole world falls apart for reconstruction.

 

Winter prepares us for the energy burst we need

to go from dormant seed to wildflowers

from death and dying to resurrection.

We overlook this season’s benefits for our manic need

to keep moving, duck the least bit of discomfort,

to look away from the ice and snow artwork or

turn a deaf ear to the sanctity of silence.

 

It is time to revel in winter as the Dark before the Light,

the Silent Night of the Soul,

the archetypal step before we save ourselves

and truly create Peace on Earth.

 

In this year of the longest winter,

Jupiter and Saturn conjoin to form a Star of Bethlehem.

History repeats.

Prepare your soul ground.

Your masks, quarantine and centering at home and hearth

are cleansing you, making way for a new epidemic of love.

~~~

Photo Credit:  © Maren Winter| Dreamstime.com