Transformations - Poetry

Zoe FitzGerald and Kit Aroneau: ‘Poem for a Winter’s Sostice’ and ‘Mountain Shock’

Fri, 01/31/2014 - 8:30am

    Poem for a Winter's Solstice
    By Zoe FitzGerald

    If you know of more magic than this –
    to stand in the darkness of a frozen night
    at one with a snowy landscape
    star-lit, moon-lit -
    count yourself blessed
    amongst the rest of us.

    For me, I am content to give thanks
    for a whitened earth, tucked in
    and slumbering under a crystal blanket,
    in well-earned respite
    from the worst of our ways
    in the world.

    Winter's wonder-land is a vault
    of sacred secrets held in icy storage,
    waiting to be re-birthed again
    and yet again,
    in slow revelations
    with the spring melt.

    Transformations

    We tell stories.

    We tell stories to make sense of our lives.

    We tell stories to communicate our experience of being alive.

    We tell stories in our own distinct voice. Our own unique rhythm and tonality.

    Transformations is a weekly story-telling column. The stories are written by community members who are my students. Our stories will be about family, love, loss and good times. We hope to make you laugh and cry. Maybe we will convince you to tell your stories.

    — Kathrin Seitz

    “Everyone, when they get quiet, when they become desperately honest with themselves, is capable of uttering profound truths. We all derive from the same source. There is no mystery about the origin of things. We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, only to discover what is already there.” — Henry Miller

    Kathrin Seitz teaches Method Writing in Rockport, New York City and Florida. She can be reached at kathrin@kathrinseitz.com.

    But don't wish away the winter,
    for like most things,
    miracles are best when allowed to take
    their own sweet time.
    Instead, let your hardened heart
    and misleading mind
    synch up with winter's rich rhythms,
    and let them slip into the muddy stew
    of snow-melt when they will.

    Be sure to let them simmer there
    a long, slow while.

    Maybe, as you watch and wait
    in the light,
    and in the dark,
    you will overhear the stars
    in conversation with one another.
    You may not discover a new star,
    but you may,
    in joyful happenstance,
    discover for yourself the Old Ones,
    and be surprised
    by the sacredness of things,
    and its nearness.

    Past annunciations
    and heraldic trumpet blasts
    have told us time and again,
    that in such unlikely places
    miracles do come forth.


    Mountain Shock
    by K.R. Aroneau

    If the fates allow, at the end of the day,
    between me and the cloud and the hollow
    and the mountain that holds me;
    light strikes and shocks the mountains
    that stretch wide before me
    a brilliant illumination, a curtsy
    toward day's end.


    Zoe FitzGerald lives and writes in her new home in Appleton. She is currently working on her first book of poems.

    K.R. Aroneau is a photographer and writer who lives in Camden. Connect with her at aroneau@yahoo.com.