Snow falling down
It bring beautiful
Peace to the world
Blanketing ti to  make
It sparkle and joyous

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com

                        The O Antiphons, the Star, and Us

Solstice is not a time when the sun stands still
But rather a season when the sun stands aside
That we may better know the mysteries of deep night
In darkness just before deep Light returns

Out in the cold, and warmly wrapped in hope
We pray the O antiphons as we scan the sky
For the prophetic Star we long to see
The Star that guides us in our wanderings

Solstice is that season when the sun stands aside
So that eternal Dawn may then abide

These cold days,
Poetry is all I've got.
Where snow falls solemnly from looming clouds,
The only thing I surround myself with are words.
I miss the spring city,
Nothing could penetrate my armor of love.
For now that December has made it's descent, I am left in winter song,
Alas, for poetry, who's warm heart could melt the ice of sorrow.
Where will the fae dance tonight?
For reading poetry it makes my heart soar, and it makes my heart sore.
Snowflakes lace the winter grave of Autumn leaves,
And poetry, a silent goddess in the wind, has captured my tongue.
Where is the sun? In this winter's song,
For poems are the light in my dark.
Cold, the fingers that hold my pen,
Verse warms my soul.
Where am I? In this winter's song.

Close the curtain
stem the night
feel uncertain
light the light

Winter evenings at

home, a faint light from outside --


faint sounds blowing by.

Winter
is a monochrome beast,
with freezing paws, an icy purr
and bits of autumn stuck in his fur

Dear reader, let me with you share
how we must loosen winter’s snare.

I remember my last summer
when lazy clouds would puff the sky
and the river’d laugh and murmur
while the wind wandered gently by.

The trees all waved in greeting
with their maple green hand leaves
while air with nectar dripping
wafted past my senses’ eaves.

All around were people glowing,
each filled to the rim with gold sunlight,
each face a brimming chalice flowing
with the fruit of grapes of delight.

But now the sun’s departed
behind the bleak clouds’ winter coat
while leafless trees look guarded —
no more waving, just remote.

I turn my collar stiffly upwards,
wrap my scarf around my face,
become one more of masked hundreds —
of our hearts’ warming hearths no trace.

Where voices once were warm and clear,
they languish, muffled in a space
that tightens in a chilling fear
locked in the creeping frost’s embrace.

The slice of ice into my bones
snaps me awake to think again
and free myself from aches and groans
that winter’s biting shadow sends.

Under winter’s bitter blanket grey,
my mind wills back to summer’s upland hills
that shimmer in sunlit summer days
to cast off winter’s hoary chills.

And so, my friend, do we choose the dark
or do we light the solstice spark?

Once upon a time,
In a Nordic country,
As winter approached,
I fell in love with a snowman,
Not caring about his freezing heart.
But I knew we wouldn’t last until the end of the season.

Do you have feelings, snowman?
Your tears are snowflakes,
Your heart of crystal,
Your feelings as unstable as snow.
Don’t come any closer, for my intensity will make you melt.

I don’t want to cause a fusion of ice and fire,
Between opposite extremes:
Passion versus coldness,
Love versus indifference,
Emotion versus reason.

Ah, my snowman,
I’m like the sun that burns and raises the temperature,
Removing winter and bringing spring.
We’re from different cycles,
Voracious and vibrant.
The warmth of my soul has melted you.
Heat and cold are finite,
Reflecting, lost in my loneliness during this frosty period.

Fire and ice can meet,
But their warmth and cold dissipate with time,
Complementary forces,
But not belonging to the same space or season.