WINTER POEM SWAP

Robert Ray photo

For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there;
Sap cheque'd with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'ersnow'd and bareness every where.

~ William Shakespeare, from Sonnet V 

Winter Poem Swap coordinator Tabatha was my poem buddy this year. Knowing that I'm revising a MG novel set in Maine and that I live in just as icy New Hampshire, she crafted a poem that will keep me going through snow, wind and frosted windows. Sometimes writing is as her poem describes, and the only thing to do is to write the words one by one until your heart opens and the story is unlocked.

I've decided that the literary socks she included in my package are my lucky writing socks, and the tea bags with writing quotes are reserved for those moments when I'm stuck. Oh, and there's a book for writers when I need all the encouragement I can find. Thanks, Tabatha. I am in love with my poem!

Writing Through Winter
             by Tabatha Yeatts 

some days
she thinks that writing is
living in a drafty cabin 

during the bitter days of winter,
listening to blank pages rattle
like wind shaking dead leaves

she thinks of her pen
as the cabin window -
a fragile barrier
against the snow 

what can you do,
she wonders,
to make it through
those nights when the wind

wraps its fearsome arm
behind your back
and leans in for a kiss? 

she knows the remedy 
for words freezing inside her
is to remember stories that pump
the bellows of her heart

she lays her gloved hand
on the pane and traces letters,
one by
one.

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Buffy has the Poetry Friday Roundup. Thanks a bunch, Buffy!