elizabethlevett

Another winter.

Another time of cold and quiet.

I tell myself to make use of this time, to do something creative.

I tell myself I should be writing, or painting, or even sewing something beautiful.

Then comes the silence, the waning light, and I find myself sleeping and sleeping,

dreaming, sitting still – with no inspiration to create anything.

I get nervous. After all, these days are short. I worry.

Why can’t I accomplish anything besides a walk through the park?

Maybe this means the spark won’t be back.

And again, people are getting sick this year so I stay home, stay quiet.

I plant bulbs and seeds in the dark, bare soil.

And here are the trees.

The plum trees and the little dwarf ginkgo are bare.

Their leaves are long gone, swept away by the rain and wind.

Everything seems bare, denuded, naked in the cold.

They show their vulnerable, brittle bones to the universe without apology, without explanation.

This is the way it is.

These trees like me are unadorned, at rest.

And suddenly there is a deep contentment in this.

The blossoms will be back and then the leaves and then the brazen and luscious fruit.

And somewhere between the richness of harvest and holidays and the dizzy promise of spring, this solemn and graceful silence is necessary.

Let me pull winter around myself like a blanket and simply rest.

Let the seeds germinate in their own time under bare soil.

Bare, but not barren.