There is a battle raging
a war waging
an age-old pattern staging.
We live in a swirling cycle of repeat.
Winter is the berth of our darkest hours,
holding fast in bleak, black cold.
We hover there, wrapped in wool, shivering anyway.
Just when we can’t bear it any longer,
hopeful bulbs peep creamy yellow and orange
through frosty soil, flagging victory over winter.
Perfumed plum blossoms invite early bees to dine,
and winter responds with angry late snow,
blotting out rays, settling over delicate petals
in heavy drifts. North winds stir, birds return to nest,
new flowers bow, darkness reigns.
Warrior Season Spring fights to cast light, knowing
winter must give way. Summer is glory, warmth,
respite. Fall is a gentle quietening. Winter is a dark,
frozen blanket. Spring alone must wage heavy war.
Violent growth, forceful life, pungent fragrance,
radiant warmth, brilliant color, sweeping breezes
obliterate winter’s grasp.
So it is, so it has always been.
As much as I love the “ber” months and the cosiness of late fall drifting into winter wrapped around holiday season, I also acknowledge that winter is a time of dark, quiet dormancy. There can be rest in winter, but it is a heavy rest, cold and bleak. Winter gives us time to reflect, plan, plot a path, but it doesn’t give us the energy to do so. It is not a place to stay or thrive.
I have been reading Wintering by
, and I absolutely know in my bones that “Wintering” can happen in the throbbing heat of June just as easily as in the iciness of January. Dark times of the soul and spirit may be something we have to wrestle with at any time because every moment of existence is pregnant with the possibility of catastrophe. Our task is to live, not dwelling on the possibility of what might wipe us out, but basking in the hope of Spring with a capital S.I want to write from the perspective of spring. As I have examined the seasons for the above poem and this short essay, I have realized that spring alone is the lion season. I don’t mean the cliché we learned in grammar school about March coming in like a lion and out like a lamb, though it often does. I mean that the other seasons each have a much gentler transition. They each give way, one to the next, without much fight. Except winter stubbornly clamps down its cloak, reluctant to allow it lifted. At this moment as I write, midnight snow is drifting to cover spring’s emergence.
We think of spring as sweet, tender, gentle: New sprouts, baby animals, mating birds, swaying green grass. We use pastel colors to illustrate it, and soft words to describe it as the baby season incubating summer. I have always thought of spring as a placeholder. It has been the boring bridge between cold, hot, dark, light, hot cocoa, iced tea, sweaters, tanks. It was the no-man’s land of waiting.
I see now that spring is a tumult of the highest order. Spring brings the donnybrook, the brawl, the clash. It wrestles inky blackness, pours newness from nothing, ignites all of creation, energizes spirits, and sends beams of shining brightness into the darkest corners of existence. If winter is the coal fuel that quietly builds under earth’s frozen surface, spring is the steam rising from that coal to chug forward in great leaps of gathering speed. It burns winter right up, using all that darkness to fuel the burning light.
Spring is not a boring gap to be endured between two more interesting seasons. It is the absolute necessity - the building block upon which all other life cycles become possible. While true of nature and seasonal transition, this applies to our daily lives and interactions as well. Each and every thing that happens to us fits in the cycle of our lives. Catastrophe, darkness, pain, and emotional agony exist in the winter spaces, but we cannot escape them without spring bringing joy, hope, healing, and renewal.
So it is, so it has always been.
This is such a lovely post, I really love the 'ber' months too. As much as I welcome the warmer spring days there is something very cosy and comforting about the winter months.
Thank you for this! I love the daffodil image too. ❤️