Winter Poetry

Editor's Note: Matching photography with poetry or finding photography that matches poetry is often inspiring.

Winter

Where spring brings the
Trickling waters of winter’s thaw
And life begins to thrust
Through relenting white crust

The continual shades of white
Give way to newly sprouted greens
Where brown earthy veins expand
From rivulets in the melting snow

And summer delivers us
Lush and Lavish life and
A superfluous symphony of sound
Rife with activity and commotion

And where autumn ushers in a
Countless casts of colour
An encore of the bold and brazen
The last hurrah of hastened hues

Winter brings a cold that stings
A stripping stark and harsh
Of blossom, life and leaf
Things once veiled, now savagely exposed

And like any event that halts
Our liveliness and forces us inside
It brings us too, the inability to hide and
Imposes a time for reflection

The leaves of trees and bounty of blooms
No longer mask our landscape
All is exposed for those to witness
The undulations of our terrain

There’s peacefulness here
In the severity
In the stripping away of distraction
In the quiet of conscripted calm

In letting all else fall away
Save the spiritual source of
All things from which life springs
The pause, the peacefulness, the pensiveness
Of winter.

By Kim (Bo) Stone Kalil,

Kim (nicknamed Bo in high school) Stone Kalil, lives in Toronto and spends as much time as possible with her family and friends at her home in the Thousand Islands, which was previously a 100-year-old defunct horse stable. Kim has shared several decorating ideas with TI Life, which you can see here.

Header photo by the author, Kim Kalil

Happy New Year

The ice represents hard times
And we’ve all had our share
We let it overwhelm us
Believing no one cares

But look at the sky
With that patch of light
That is called hope
And it’s truly a sight

Come spring the ice will melt
And marry the water below
The sunlight will grow ever stronger
To put on a beautiful show

Two thousand twenty-five
Will replace that shattered ice
We hope with all our heart
That it brings us something nice

Let us start with good health,
Tolerance, kindness and caring
Let it bring understanding,
Laughter, love and sharing

By Gretchen Huntley, Poet Laureate
Town of Gananoque

Gretchen Huntley was appointed Poet Laureate for the Town of Gananoque in March 2021. In October 2024, Gretchen wrote "Tributes by Gananoque's Poet Laureate" for TI Life, and we have reviewed two small books that Gretchen recently published: "Reality and Me" by editor, Susan Smith in November, 2020 and "Poetry Through a Lens" by John Swift in June 2021. Both books featured photography by Sam Battams. I hope you will join me in thanking this poet for her inspirational works.Photograph by Sam Battam Photography.