At the banquet

At the banquet the guests
Eat without speaking
Look out the windows
to the empty fields.

Old candles, old wine
Old faces, old fools
No one knows

Everything is going
It is gone
Into a distant sea
to distant shore
Fallen down like
last year’s rain.

At the banquet 
Such silent speculation
Such despair
They look out the windows
to the empty fields
To the edge of the earth

The light falls
The windows close
The curtains draw together
The night falls
like last year’s rain

At the banquet
They hide from
the empty night.

Everything is almost lost
Whatever comes
Whatever is left 
may not fill the 
small holes in their souls
As they fade
In the guttered candle smoke.


-	Copyright Kay Winter

Take back from the lost days

Take back from the lost days
the small candle,
the standing at the window
watching rain,
the chance meeting on a bridge.

Take back from the lost days
the waking light,
the scent of fireplaces
on winter air.

Save them in the place
you put your healing heart.

-	Copyright Kay Winter

Low skies

A day of low skies, changing winds, mysteries.
Moving floods of sunlight.

I walk the smooth sands
of low tide
near the cliff.

The mist settles then shifts over the silver gray sea.
Gulls, a sea bird cries in the distance.

Months of mornings like this: a summer, a fall.
Winter coming on.
The cliff floats, vanishes and reappears
further away.

The tide comes in
as slowly as it can

I turn my steps toward shore
and find an unfamiliar rock,
dark, sleeping like selkie.

-	Copyright Kay Winter

Stranger

Stranger,
you may be the one
to tell me that
the world offers no answer
other than itself.

Other than the March light
the rain
the scent of mud

and the haplessness
of last year’s leaves
blowing through the alley.

-	Copyright Kay Winter

Dreams

Go into the woods to dream.
Take the gift of the spider with you
if you need to forget
the shadows.
-	Copyright Kay Winter

Morning glory

You heard a bell ring for you

in a distant tower.



You felt a sudden wind rush 

through the summer chimney.



You lifted the curtain and then let it fall.



You knew.



And left at first light,

early September,

the morning glories still blooming

at the back gate.

-	Copyright Kay Winter

Omen Day – Sprite

A sprite blown here.

Or fallen,

but while falling, flying.



To earth, this bare streetside,

casting rocks,

a small island

Near a tree.



-	Copyright Kay Winter

Omen Day 11 – Birds

Birds magic to leaves

Hiding below the sky

Endlessness, fear, trouble, 

Shifting shape, 

nothing but dry leaves

in a winter tree.



-	Copyright Kay Winter

Omen Day 10 – Stones

Rough stones and leaves

Last summer’s chives

Snow-patch, ice-patch, cement.


A path of lengthening days leading 

through winter.



-	Copyright Kay Winter

Omen Day 9 – Vines

Entanglements

of old summers.


Voices gone now

agreed upon some unspoken direction.


Begun across springs,
at rest in winter night.



-	Copyright Kay Winter