Winter Glow

Today's poem is another example of the kind of subject I write about most frequently ... an ordinary, everyday event or topic ... but perhaps seen in a slightly different way ... as though with "new eyes."

I try to impart that difference ... and I'm greatly rewarded when a reader sees that difference ... or perhaps points out something about the topic that I hadn't quite seen myself.

It's all about the learning process ... and I love it!

The photo? That's me ... somewhere in my teen years ... standing between the grandparents who reared me.

The original was rescued by one of my relatives ... passed along to me ... and is now one of my most prized possessions.

The poem:

WINTER GLOW

Cracked, yellowed snapshots
surrender from inside
a musty box

circled with twine, speaking
of times gone, like thin
ribbons of vapor

slowly curling and uncurling
from a neighbor's
chimney

while I sit in this cold
attic space looking
at relatives

and places I never knew,
their images saved,
but stories lost,

beginning to sense a feeling
of warmth, a winter
glow, spreading

over me as I touch the faces

of these strangers again

and close the box.

 © 2006

(originally published in Capper's)

Today's word: warmth