Winter Sun
by Molly Fisk
How valuable it is in these short days,
threading through empty maple branches,
the lacy-needled sugar pines.
Its glint off sheets of ice tells the story
of Death’s brightness, her bitter cold.
We can make do with so little, just the hint
of warmth, the slanted light.
The way we stand there, soaking in it,
mittened fingers reaching.
And how carefully we gather what we can
to offer later, in darkness, one body to another.
From The More Difficult Beauty © Hip Pocket Press, 2010.
Reprinted with permission.
Read this and other poems by Molly Fisk in The More Difficult Beauty, available for purchase online.
Molly Fisk’s simple yet profound poem speaks to nature’s constant cycles of death and rebirth, and our own part in them. She also points out how deprivation, especially in the depths of winter’s shorter days, when we’re forced to stay more distant from each other, can help us appreciate any little light when it does come, sometimes seemingly out of nowhere. On one of those rare warm days, we might still, “soaking in it, mittened fingers reaching,” taking pleasure in the winter sun. Yet the end of the poem opens into a deeper truth too: we don’t just gather light and warmth for ourselves alone. We store it up “to offer later, in darkness, one body to another.” If nothing else, the bitter cold can show us how vulnerable we all are, how dependent on each other, especially when we find our own reserves of hope and faith inevitably depleted. Then we can turn to someone we trust, giving and receiving the light in this endless exchange of kindness and love that defines our lives.
Invitation for Writing & Reflection: Think back to a time when you found light and strength in the midst of darkness or difficulty, and were able to offer it to someone else. How did it feel to give to another, no matter how small the gesture, how little the light?
ABOUT THE POET: Molly Fisk
Molly Fisk edited California Fire & Water, A Climate Crisis Anthology, with a Poets Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets when she was Poet Laureate of Nevada County, CA. She’s also won grants from the NEA, the California Arts Council, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Her most recent poetry collection is The More Difficult Beauty; her latest book of radio commentary is Naming Your Teeth. Fisk lives in the Sierra foothills. More at mollyfisk.com
POETRY SELECTION AND COMMENTARY BY JAMES CREWS
James Crews is the author of four collections of poetry: The Book of What Stays, Telling My Father, Bluebird, and Every Waking Moment. He is also the editor of two anthologies: Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection and How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope. His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The New Republic, The New York Times Magazine, The Sun, and have been reprinted in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry and featured on Tracy K. Smith’s podcast, The Slowdown. James teaches at SUNY-Albany and lives with his husband in Vermont.
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I love reading your reviews. They are poetry in themselves.
I read differently. I read that the reaching mittens were not receiving pleasure as much as replenishment from the empty, the bitter cold, from having so little. The gathering carefully is necessary because it’s precious and maybe rare at this stark time.