The Hard Season
--on turning 44

February can be hard
when you live in a cold place—
a northern place
where the softness of snow
falling at midnight can suddenly vanish
into crusted ice and the dangling teeth of icicles
that hang ready to shorten
your already numbered days.

This is the history of forgetting
I’ve been born into—
the belief system
that stares back at me in the mirror
marking more than 40 years
on my face.

Time and the tilting earth
will bring us around
to spring soon enough
where all my daffodils
will push up laughing
from such darkness
and in that time I will learn
again to ignore the lines on this skin
and remember the joy of bright skies
and yellow.

There are times now
when I trace the letters of my name
for luck and to call abundance to my voice.
I am a beggar no longer
where I have learned to sing
with the birds and the wind.

On this road
I know where I live
and can easily find my way
even when the moon is dark
and the clouds hide the path
I’ve known by the stars.

The twin of my true self
is here with me now
reminding me of the small comfort
of hope I carry in the red beaded bag of my heart.
Together we pass by the house of Loneliness
and make our way toward a single candle
in the window of the night.

This light
is the constant prayer
of the coming year.