Dining in & other winter laments...

I am incorporating those two aspects of the title in order to embrace the "looking out and looking in" aspects of life...our relationships with others and, more important, with ourselves. If spring is about blossoming, then perhaps winter is a time for introspection, slow growth, hunkering down sometimes, and making the tough decisions about whether "to go" or "to stay."

For me, there are few instances when something "in between" is the answer. Why? Because that is just postponement, and especially--later in life--it seems a poor remedy for understanding either ourselves or other. The door is open or closed, not ajar.

Margaret Scott's beautiful and gentle drawing, created expressly for this feature, gentled my choices of poetry somewhat. There I go, a gray zone. If it happens again, read on anyway, please.

If winter is just a mood…

If winter is just a mood
I can almost feel
this dried-up half-life
erupting from the ground..

If winter is just a time
between times,
there must be something
I misunderstood.

If winter is more or less
than gloom,
one bird hunting food
without a sound,

How does it explain
this blue-green summer
we professed,
caught snowbound in a room?

Kay Weeks
c. 1972
__________


Daybreak

Four Winter Senryu

Stretched beyond reason,
horizontal ocean light--
my poem cut short.



How honest are we
articulating this love?
Speech makes me weary.

Starting out slowly,
gathering force as we go--
then the silence comes.

Does this form suit me?
Brevity is clarity.
Short, swift--candle snuffed.

1.5.11

________
SKETCHES IN HONESTY

When we are fine
Dinner is dinner.
When we are not,
A missing utensil
Is symbolic of all omission.

In the middle of an argument
I ask you what you want.
You reply “peace.”
Then we argue further.

You tell me to get to the point.
That is the point.
I am not a syllogism.

Isolated in my pain,
In our pain together,
With others chatting amiably,
I can savor neither.

Kay Weeks
1977
___________

Couple

We want to mark some path,
I feel,
numbing if we don’t—
the simple black and white of things
turns gray
and spins our wheel.

Once caught between to go
or stay,
--our words a jabbing swath--
cut deeply to the bone,
yet don’t reveal.

Will we hear a bell that rings
yet keep our let’s pretend?
Or let it go, not knowing
who we’ll be
at meal’s end?

Kay Weeks
1.3.11
_______

Leftovers

Well, that’s one more down.
You can’t have the cat either.
No anger, though,
she is just being herself.
Last night,
kneading
nudging
rubbing
--more than I wanted.

This morning, I try to hold onto
her soft gray silence,
wanting more.

But I still have the coffee,
I have Pema Chodron,
guiding me to fearlessness
the crickets singing,
an aching foot,
the eggs and brown rice.
The ice. It’s where to put the ice
I am wondering.

Kay Weeks c. 2008

Drawing: Margaret Scott
Photos and content: Kay Weeks

1.13.2011