Winter Transition
This season of cold days and long nights
asks for the gift of a bright interlude:
the warmth of candles and sparkle of lights,
oven-roast goose and traditional baking,
the sound world of Bach to touch the soul’s depth,
a hopeless wish: peace on earth and good will.
Soon we move on to a man-made marker
for turning life’s leaves toward the looming future –
yet those new leaves resemble the old;
maybe the first law of Newton for motion
holds just as well for our inertia of habits.
Some months of long nights and cold days
with snow and ice have yet to pass,
while daylight grows slowly, and
thermal inertia yields to resurrection of Spring.
– Peter Schmidt (Jan. 2023)
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