First Day of Winter
after Jane Kenyon
Orange has fled the marigolds
Sparrows search the remains of sunflower heads.
Fresh bread fills the kitchen
And on the stove soup bubbles
from the last of the turkey bones.
Let winter come.
Ribbons and wrapping paper put away
What can be wrapped is wrapped.
What can be tied is tied.
After fall’s final flourish
What is there left to do
but let winter come?
All is in readiness.
Our heavy coats hang in the hall.
The cane leans by the door.
The husks that rattle in the furrows now
were resting in the corn we sowed in spring.
Let winter come.
*
Michael Northen is the past editor of Wordgathering, A Journal of Disability and Poetry. He was co-editor of the anthology Beauty is a Verb: The New Poetry of Disability, the disability short fiction anthology, The Right Way to Be Crippled and Naked, and is currently editing a new anthology of disability poetry.
