The Edge of Winter

Something interrupted them, the seasons,
strange weather, off-season,
love and ambition in old age,
Loss when young. Dark in the day.
Content with winter in August.
May and December have become interchangeable.

Once, it was disconcerting. Nothing anticipated
happened. And certainly not when you had planned,
when you expected. Now? You are content
to see where the wind blows and hoist your sail
to the seasonal storms and the unseasonable loves,
looking more for peace than prevailing winds,
a place to rest and look for the lessons in the whirlwind.

They are there. They are always there. In the noise,
In the wind. In the silences of unpredictable seasons.
No longer disconcerting, the weather becomes a wonder,
a waiting for what the sea will blow in,
what it will blow out, And what it leaves.

So leave me here, at the edge of winter.
It is not, as some imagine the end of the year,
but another waystation between springs.

About this poem

My life has always been full of surprises. Among them – love at the edge of old age. At an age where most people feel settled, I don’t. I have no idea if that is good or bad. Some things just are.

Tom