Winter Ghazal: 48°Latitude, 122° Longitude
Susan J. Erickson
The sun is sequestered elsewhere in winter.
We survive on diluted prayer in winter.
During a rain break, the old man finds a puddle
of sun for his sagging lawn chair in winter.
The trees are inscribed against the stainless sky,
their architecture stripped bare in winter.
Goethe’s last request: “More light. Give me more light.”
Gray days, long nights. The somber pair of winter.
April is the cruelest month; January
the deadliest. Proceed with care in winter.
I read obituaries in the paper
to defy my impulse toward despair in winter.
Do not sink in a quagmire of gloom, Susan.
Clear your mind with the austere air of winter.
*With credit for the quoted line to T. S. Eliot
Susan J. Erickson’s collection of poems, in women’s voices, Lauren Bacall Shares a Limousine, won the Brick Road Poetry Prize. Susan enjoys writing in forms and is especially obsessed with the ghazal. She lives in Bellingham, Washington, where she helped establish the Sue C. Boynton Poetry Walk and Contest. Her poems appear in Rattle, Crab Creek Review, Verse Daily, Sliver of Stone, The Fourth River and Terrain.