There was that winter day when the ice floe
had cracked the river ice into giant slabs
thick as my open hand, tall as a child.
Our family gathered on the river bank
and played with the fractured chunks to make
sculptures—ice huts and ice caves and
a long ice wall that curved and snaked
through the snow along the river’s edge
like the spine of a giant stegosaurus,
jagged and upright. It’s never happened
again. The ice slabs always freeze together
or crush into bits, but that night,
we went out with dozens of candles
and lit the ice structures from within.
And the glow then, the gold that blazed
through the ice, was the kind of luminous
magic that winter seldom knows. What
was shattered and sharp, heavy and cold,
became radiance, brilliance, a visible hope
I didn’t yet know I would need, some proof
of what might transpire in the winter
of the heart—how broken and frigid,
it still might become a means
to gather beauty, to amplify the light.
How beautiful!!! the power of ‘the light’ over hardness of heart and raw, jagged……. gasp to quote RWT …smile
j
❤️❤️❤️ (gasp!)
wise add on…. The Dalia Lama recently said: It’s a Western woman who will save the world’
I heard that too ~ and our Rosemerry is definitely one he was talking about!
❤️❤️❤️❤️ Oh sweet both of you …
Kamala Harris???
I read this moments ago and am still trying to catch my breath….
ohhhhhh — and the exquisite ecstasy of the crisp, clear, twist and snap of those last five lines <3
Oh friend, thank you … I am grateful for the candle of you!
(To paraphrase) what was shattered and sharp became radiance. Right away on reading, the title should have got me thinking of “Lo, How a Rose,” though instead I thought of “In the Bleak Midwinter.” Either way, I was attached to what was coming—cold, night, winter, ice—though not so much for “radiance,” which was surprise and (like the ice, lit-up) moving delight.
I love that you arrived, though, at that Rose, lo and all … all that surprising blooming in a time when it doesn’t feel possible.
Hi Ana YES… very rare for the Dalia Lama to make such a statement!! Rosemerry is an amazing and generous spirited woman!! We are all blessed.
j
🌳❤️❤️❤️ you amazing and generous women!!