On the darkest nights, the coldest nights when the sky is moonless and the ice so cold it sings through the frozen lake, we do not visit. We stay at home with our fires burning and a candle in each window. All night we stay awake and the grandmothers tell stories of wolves. This story begins as an ordinary story. A girl did not want to marry anyone her village Or the villages nearby. So she went alone to the dark forest On wolf night. “A night like this night?” the smallest girl says and looks at the snow drifting up against the window. “Just like this night,” the storyteller answers with a golden gleam in her eye. She put on her skis, her fur cloak, her woolen hood, her fur mittens and went silently through the dark night alone to the place where the wolves were. She waited until she saw two golden eyes. “I wish to marry you,” she asked. The golden eyes turned away in refusal. So the girl went on. Further into the darkness, deeper into the cold, into a darkness darker than the moonless night. Colder than the black water under the ice until there was no light at all. Not even a cold blue star. And she became the darkness. And she became the cold. And she became the ice singing. And became a wolf. - Copyright Kay Winter
odhranwrites
Poems
Edge of the edge
Years before this happened Before the storm When the moon looked down for the first time The endless sky knew this journey. I drive on through the night Toward the edge of dawn. This edge: the edge of the end This edge: just before the edge of the beginning With the black ink map I mark each hour against the night I mark each star as it falls into an empty space I wonder if the moon itself will break into pieces Before I arrive. I drive on waiting for the world to move me into a wide prairie space where I can run into the tall grasses to the others arriving. We have come so far, we say. Copyright Kay Winter
Object Properties: Shadow, No Shadow
Shadow, no shadow My house is a house with windows that let me see all the way through. I can stand in the shade on the blue patio and look all the way through to the summer sun in the front. Shadow, no shadow There is a mountain in Eden I want to climb. They say from the top You can see all the way through paradise To the edges of it. A horizon is a description of a great space (not a line). We are sailing through it now in a disjointed time at the end of a dark year. - Copyright Kay Winter
We told ourselves
We told ourselves we would be safe And feathered in our nest. And weren’t we? Me, and the ghosts of me, Reluctant to leave through the rainy season. Time enough to go to the basement And open the graves of good intentions. Love is love when it alteration finds, we said. Tucked up, we said. Rubbled in anyway by sirens and ash. So deep the door sticks only halfway open. Here we are. Troubled times and canned soup And the big bag of rice on order. Let’s watch the Lucy Show. Calling Adam 12. Same bat channel. Me, and the ghosts, and Mrs. Muir. What else can I do but wait For the tea to brew and invent More memories That I tape to the wall of the dark hallway. I praise the wallpaper. Your roses are rosy today, I say. This day is a day is a day. Copyright Kay Winter
Dream of Stars
Sleeping inside while pretending to be awake
The afternoon passes and dusk falls
Still I sleep, eyes open.
Someone draws the curtains
And clicks a lamp on.
Still I sleep.
The stars outside awaken
Nothing will happen here
If I go.
Sleep falls into me.
The roof above me is gone
The stars are singing ancient songs
To captains in prayer
And those in flight
Star to star they sing
And I, a star now, too
With voice of light
Sing too.
Set your course by me
For this season only
Or remain
Forever
Lost.
- Copyright Kay Winter
Vanishing
We appeared only to vanish
Away from all spaces that held our light
Into trees dark with melting snow
Into the thawing black waters of the creek
Into the brief and blazing sunsets
That sank away into night.
- Copyright Kay Winter
December Omen – Star
A star made in imitation
Of an ancient sign
Journeys begun unexpectedly
After long waiting
What gifts will we bring?
- Copyright Kay Winter
November Omen – Early Moon
Up early enough
For the morning moon
Branches bare
We have come
An impossible distance
Copyright Kay Winter
October Omen – Snow Shadow
Shadows and landscape edges
The troll face of trickery and treats
The year about to get lost
Crossing into dark woods
Passage, shadow, mystery, magic
Copyright Kay Winter
