Happy Sunday friends, here’s a poem. 🖋
Until the Lilies (a ballade for wintering) Fickle March comes with a false spring, swinging between robin egg blue skies and a roaring wind that stings and claws at your coat. Is it dew or snowmelt that soaks the grass? You see color drain from the world, keep fighting the darkness to get through until the lilies wake from sleep. These are the days of wintering. In this gray, any space will do to make a haven from shivering crowds, above the gray snow’s purview. Climb up the stairs and you’ll find true rest, a soft, kind stillness that sweeps over weariness, sheltering you, until the lilies wake from sleep. Small stars of light will blaze on strings to brighten darkest corners. New scent of garlic, spice, and soup will bring warmth before the blooms. All through each night, we’ll pause and review favorite tales, and tea will steep, and records spin, and hope renew until the lilies wake from sleep. In the cold earth, everything grew before spreading into green. So keep winter and wait until we come to the day the lilies wake from sleep.
I planned to share another old R&K poem, but then we got a snow day this week. Or maybe, more accurately, a slush day? Cold and raw and wet and windy, just as March sweeps in.
Rain and gray is not nearly as fun as snow, and snow has been hard to come by this year. We’re already so close to the coast that it doesn’t get quite as snowy as other parts further west or north, but this winter has been extra moody, swinging wildly between bitter cold and nearing 60. Climate change is a jerk, y’all.
Anyway, this poem. This one came about around this time last year as a contribution to Alicia Pollard’s Winter Eyrie series, a collaboration around this set of prompts:
Explore the theme of “Winter Eyrie,” centering on the concept of an eagle’s nest in the heights, or a house/fortress on a hill or mountain. In any form or genre, describe a place like an eyrie: a refuge, nest, stronghold, haven, or citadel: a place which feels completely safe and at peace, especially if the outer world is confusing or scary.
Challenge: Try a form, method, or angle you haven’t tried before, such as a new poetic meter or prose style.
The eyrie image was easy. I automatically thought of our third floor city apartment — warm and cozy and well stocked with enough blankets and hot drinks for the grossest of slush days. For the challenge part, I scanned a list of poetic forms and settled on the French ballade, something structured enough to stretch my skills, but not so intricate I’d get bogged down and miss the deadline.
Following a strict form is, surprisingly, a good way to get unstuck. When you have to march to a rhyme pattern and commit to a refrain, surprising images and word choices emerge. Once I got a refrain (“until the lilies wake from sleep”) and the general line ending sounds (ing and oo and eep), I found a poem that felt ruminative and soothing. Like those late winter evenings when it feels like winter will never end but… look, the sunset is just a tiny bit later than it was the day before.
One more fun behind the scenes fact: I got a whole first draft down and felt so proud of it. Then realized I’d totally botched the rhyme pattern in the last couple stanzas. So that was a fun mess to clean up.
This poem is in my new book Beneath the Flood, coming this May from Bandersnatch Books! If you missed it, check out my cover reveal post here!