I Want to Celebrate Winter

by David Asia (December 2011)

I want to celebrate winter,

Celebrate the cold

Laying like iron

On the land,

To wrap myself in colored layers

Of cotton, fleece, and wool,

After endless, yellow days

Of bare, brown skin.

I want to stand in the quiet, heavy darkness

As neighbors settle early

With their books

By their fires

After so many months of toiling

In the long shadows of evening,

Hostage to their harvests,

To marvel at Orion’s hunt

Across the floor of heaven

Like some awed Neanderthal

Seeing it for the first time.

I want to understand things,

To believe in magic,

To summon the ancestors

Down from the mountains

And rest in the shelter

Of their old stories

Told in voices long silent.

I want to see their faces

In the dim light,

Touch their leathered hands,

And have them tell me again

Why these things matter.

I want to celebrate winter.

 

 

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