Between

 
Between

In wintry climes, we greet the sun with joy. 
In torrid ones, we welcome cloud and rain.
So also, what for some is pleasure might
For others be instead a source of pain.

******

Our memories link us to the vanished past.
Imagination helps us look ahead.
These things have surely been among our strengths,
But might at times be maladies instead.

So recollection may console, inform,
Anticipation clear the murk ahead,
But misery, when relived, prolongs the pain—
And anxious thoughts may fill our minds with dread.

To live within the present time is best,
As that is really all we have at hand. 
And yet, the future and the past are bridged
By this—the passing now upon the strand.

****** 

One by one, the stars appear within
The dark that spreads across the sky at night.
Between the cold and fire, we live and die—
Between the past and future, darkness, light.

2023 February 6th, Mon.
Berkeley, California

In the Gray

In the Gray
  
In the gray that marks the winters
Of the coastal polar climes,
I’ve wandered on deserted streets
And mouthed my dismal rhymes.

In the silences of holidays,
I’ve passed by windows lit,
Conversing with my lonesome self,
With remnants left of wit.

And so it is with exiles
And so it is with those
Who’re born to die in prisons
Or live in those they chose.

We humans are a social lot—
And wounded loners need
Some company to soothe their souls,
So healing can proceed.
 
How many days and weeks and months
And even scores of years
We humans bear, removed from those
For whom we shed our tears?

In the gray that marks the winters
Of the lands towards the poles,
The migrants gain their living, while
They slowly lose their souls.

There is light and there is darkness.
There is evil, there is good.
And then—there is the grayness
That blurs what’s understood.

  

So we wander in our limbos
In the foggy shades of gray
And we wonder how it happened
That we lost, alas, our way.

“...and deliver us from evil.” 
In the school that I attended,
We would say this in the morning
And again when classes ended.

But we never said a prayer
That said, “Save us from the gray.”
In my dotage, still in exile,
I should say this every day.

2015 December 26th, Sat. 12:51 am
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York 
  

Winter’s March

   
Winter’s March
   
Now March is here but still old Winter reigns
And wheels his troops  in furious campaigns,
With waves of bitter cold advancing south,
And blizzards roaring east across the plains.

In January, his cannons thundered snow.
In  February, he sent us even more.
Now March has come and still he won’t relent.
We cower and we pray for him to go.

North American plains, eastern great lakes and Atlantic, 2014 January

  














But hope has long departed, leaving dread.
On city streets, you see the walking dead.
At start of Lent, they ask, “Will penitence
Give strength enough to face what lies ahead?”

Chicago lake-shore, 2014 January (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

    















  
For glaciers now appear where pavement was,
As some debate our future and its cause.
And some are crying, “Let us legislate!”
But Winter little cares for human laws.

Ice formations, Chicago, 2014 January
(AP Photo/Andrew A. Nelles)

 
 
And those of science, with their knowledge vast,
Declare, “Such things have happened in the past.”
But that, to us, is comfort cold indeed.
We wonder if, till April, souls can last.

We once were puny apes in tropic lands.
But then, we camped on ice and desert sands.
And now our engines can pollute the poles,
And what this does, no human understands.

Weakening of the polar vortex, causing cold air to spill  into North America, 
2014 January 6th (NASA image)
    
But those of wisdom, who are patient, say,
“The night is lengthened, but there’s still the day.
We’ll bear the cold as we have borne the dark.
When March has ended,  we’ll have April, May…

“For winters come and rage and then they go.
From empires too, we’ll surely suffer more.
In hubris, humans wreak their havoc, but
In time, they’ll vanish, like the remnant snow.”

Monster storm over New York City

                                                                                                  

Jesus recumbent over New York City  
                              

2014 March 4th, Tue.
Brooklyn, New York
 

Colder

Colder
   

The cold, that had receded, now comes back

And all, who do not bundle up, will freeze,

Unless they either are content or forced

To huddle where there’s heat enough to thaw.

And some will find this bracing.  Others curse.

And others yet will bear with it with grace.

But some will falter – fall, as winter’s staff

Lays low the feeble or unwary ones.

For ice and concrete are a lethal mix,

A cruel trap that's set.  An elder’s bones

Can rarely stand the impact of a fall

Upon that surface, polished, slick and hard.

And others start to sneeze and cough and then

To take to beds – or struggle still to work.

And some recover.  Others worsen, die.

And so it’s been, whenever winter comes.

******

 

From harsher climates, roared the Mongols, Huns

And all the murderous tribes that ravished lands

Where others, far more docile, grew their grain.

So empires fell and others rose in place.

And yet, how varied are the winter’s folk –

From Inuit to Norse to Kalmyk clans –

And at the southern tip of western lands,

The Patagonians of the fire and ice.

And here, in New York City, we’ve a taste

Of what the Amerindians bore, in moccasins.

But being by the world-encircling sea,

We’re spared the rigors of the lands within.

But as I hunch my shoulders, bending down

And pulling hood and cap yet tighter ‘round my head,

I realize I’m walking here within

A zone that’s colder than my freezer is.

******

 

No primate, save perhaps the yeti, which

May well be more of fable than of fact,

Has ventured where the nakedest of apes

Has gone – and even settled, in its arc.

Does climate shape a culture?  Surely, yes.

The ones that grew in milder, coastal climes

Have features that are different from those

That dealt with winters cold or summers harsh.

But scratch an Eskimo or Fuegan and

You’ll find a bonobo that longs for warmth.

And Viking women, pale from the sunless past,

Will shiver still from cold and strip for sun.

So those with means escape the winter’s cold

And soak in warmth on sunlit tropic isles.

But workers here must venture out to work,

And back again, in freezing cold and dark.

    

2013 December 24^th, Tue.
Bensonhurst, Brooklyn