Emily Brisse

Thank you, day, for this crisp air, for these wisps of sun, for hours as pristine and quiet as this. Sometimes to slow down we need no other choice, and it is later that we are grateful. Thank you, month, for holly-berries and pine trees, for burning candles, for soprano and alto and tenor and bass voices sailing across lakes of snow, for little children in blue coats, for the scent of warm homes and family. Thank you, winter, for coming again. In most cases, you are cold and treacherous and often unfriendly, but this is how the best of us get when we are lonely. Come on in to my house's corner. I will sidle up to the window and tell you a story. I promise, there will be snow on tongues and much laughing. And thank you, year, for this visit, for stretching out your wide arms and twirling us into and out of your parlor. We talk about how quickly the days, months, and seasons go. We say, "Each year flies faster than the one before." And this may be true. But you are stil

I cannot claim Lake Susan Park as a new destination. I have biked on its trails, read against its trees, studied its vegetation, and waded into its waters for several summers now. Occasionally I play tennis there, or stop by and watch a baseball game, my cheeks reddening in the sun. Always I am thankful that its 33-acres are close by, an open space that holds out its hands to the community. Yesterday, a season later, I woke to fantastically blue skies--more true, I found, than those in summer--and a world that was frosted white. Hoar frost . The remaining goldenrod stalks stood frozen and glittering. The grove across the street resembled something out of a fantasy story, something with a name like Niffelvine or Ruumulus or Asgard. Everything seemed cast in a sleepy spell. I went to Lake Susan with sleep still clinging to the corners of my eyes because I didn't want to miss the way the light was colliding with light. How long could something that beautiful last? How long, I wond

Walking beside a creek in December, the black ice windy with leaves, you can feel the great joy of the trees, their coats thrown open like drunken men, the lifeblood thudding in their tight, wet boots. -- Ted Kooser from Flying at Night

"There is a privacy about [winter] which no other season gives you.... In spring, summer, and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself."  -- Ruth Stout

"No," I said. "Let's stay inside, by this gas fireplace and our pot of soup and our dry woolen socks and warm blankets. That wind isn't out to make friends." But who am I to say no to a walk, or at least convincingly so. My husband took out all our winter wear, tossed three choices of mittens on the floor, and--when I was layered-- zipped my jacket up so tight that I couldn't move my chin. Still, beyond our walls was an old fashioned Minnesota blizzard  that was depositing in sum sixteen inches of snow. I glanced out our front window and could barely see across the street. "Really. I don't know about this." I didn't. There was such howling, such icy gusts creeping through the opened door. I felt almost dread . But I followed him. Into the cold. Into the wind. Into the flying pellets of frenzied ice that flung themselves into my once-warm cheeks and once-open eyes. "I can't see!" I cried, and was literally crying, thick

Late lies the wintry sun a-bed, A frosty, fiery sleepy-head; Blinks but an hour or two; and then, A blood-red orange, sets again. Before the stars have left the skies, At morning in the dark I rise; And shivering in my nakedness, By the cold candle, bathe and dress. Close by the jolly fire I sit To warm my frozen bones a bit; Or with a reindeer-sled, explore The colder countries round the door. When to go out, my nurse doth wrap Me in my comforter and cap; The cold wind burns my face, and blows Its frosty pepper up my nose. Black are my steps on silver sod; Thick blows my frosty breath abroad; And tree and house, and hill and lake, Are frosted like a wedding-cake. -- By Robert Louis Stevenson

-- black                                              -- black                                                                                           -- black -- purple -- red -- orange pink red pink orange fushia -- pale pink -- pale blue -- blue -- white -- blue -- white -- bluewhitebluewhitebluewhitebluewhite --cerulean -- pale blue -- hazy yellow, like grains of long rice -- rose -- rose -- fushia orange pink red pink orange -- fire -- one last flash -- embers -- ash -- black                                            -- black                                                                                            -- black