We don’t think of them in winter.
Winter and flowers at opposite
ends of that continuum of seasons.
But they are there standing in cold
and snow as if guardians to secrets
of the earth only house plants dream
about. That is where their beauty lies
in that strength to bare the bareness
of wind and sky and snow.
They stand not against but in
the snow and cold, their beauty
awaiting that resurrection of spring
standing in clumps or solitary
reminders that what is absent
in one season is present in another –
they never think about dying forever.
Byron Hoot
Byron Hoot was born and raised in Morgantown, West Virginia and lived there until he went to college. He never returned to West Virginia but he never left it. Appalachia, the hills and streams, the people, his memories of those first eighteen years are deeply embedded. Now he lives in northwestern Pennsylvania . . . still in Appalachia. He is a co-founder of The Tamarack Writers (1974). Proprietor of Hootnhowlpoetry.com where you can find Piercing the Veil, The Art of Grilling, Monster In the Kingdom, Such Beautiful Sense, Poems From the Woods, In Our Time, These Need No Title, and Observations. Weekly poems and monthly readings available on the website. And his new book, Poems of a Mad Hunter and other Tales. All available from Amazon.