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This winter of war blankets our lives like a black and endless snow.
Inside our warm homes we shiver from the chill of “live” coverage
Of the Middle East, our hearts weighted by the day's count--
First none, then three, then eleven, then twenty, then--
Weeks pass by in somber anonymity,
Like a sleep-walker in a vacant house.
This season of little snow sharpens our lives,
Makes us irritable and less tolerant.
Children squabble, men curse, and women cry
At the slightest provocation.
On the coldest night of the year I enter the biting darkness,
Welcoming a force beyond all human control.
Beneath the clear and crackling stars I weep for those
Whose eyes will share this view no more,
Each solitary tear held firm to my flesh
Like the frozen signatures of the faceless lost.
In March we will line the sills with mail-order seedlings,
Their flowerless petals like the grief-stricken stare
Of families in mourning.
I will dowse each room with living yellow, cramming the bare corners
With daffodil and jonquil. At the passing of the equinox,
The backyard hedge of forsythia will waver in the kite-flying wind,
A wild and yellow banner, stained here and there
With the tell-tale wound of a blackbird's wing.
Here at my place by the window,
In the solemn stillness of a new spring dawn,
I will finger the pages of the daily news, smudging
The bold-faced print as if to eradicate its sad truth.
I will lift my gaze to the vast and sun-lit heaven,
Offering a thankful prayer to a power beyond my
Intervention, a force that drives the trees to leaf,
Pushes the crocus from the sweet, wet earth,
And fills the morning woods with song.
©2003, Dale Edmands
Mr. Edmands is the Webmaster for Kookamonga Square, an open-sourced poetry site at Yahoo, Geocities. Some of his poems, including, “Seasons Amid War,” may be viewed at Lovestories.com under the name, Dale Edmands.
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