By Lawrence “Mack in Texas” Hall
Ice in February
There is the fireplace, warm with summer oak
But you are not here to share it with me
There is the coffee pot – or I could brew tea
But you are not here to share it with me
The Cold Kept Me in Today
The cold kept me in today
With a book, my dog, and the fire
The slanting sun, each mote-dusted ray –
It was all very like dear Tolkien’s Shire
Tiny Artists of the Night
Snowflakes by flashlight in the deepening dark
I left them to their night of proper tasks
They beamed down to the earth all over the park
And for the cold grey dawn they’ve made great masks
Plateaus of iridescent white to layer the lawn
Transcendent beauty in a transient medium
Still falling against the feeble all-day dawn
Little artists who form great truths from tedium
And then mysteriously they fly away
To shape the existentials some other day
The Cold Has Gotten Old
“For many years I was a self-appointed inspector of snow-storms…” -Thoreau, Walden
The cold has gotten old without Christmas trees
And little lights in all their vestmental tints
No longer counterpoint the dark northern breeze
No visions of spring, no dreamings, no hints
The happy lawns of summer are mud and frost
The path to the cowshed is a rattle of sleet
The trail to the fishing hole was yesterday lost
And our boots are too thin for our freezing feet
But after our chores boiling hot coffee, please –
The cold has gotten old without Christmas trees!
LogoSophia Magazine 