Peculiar for the season of the northwestern lands
lands that border the eternal hibernating lakes
That come anew every first touch upon shores warm
A wind of seers bites into my very hand
Oh, seer can you say where the hard freeze comes?
Why so mild in this year of trees barren and muddied fronts
Why winds so lonely across woods thinned
Seer of the melting lost frosts over waters unspoken
The white melts away for another day, but I keep forever a private Winter
Trees lonely of oak and maple won't wake
Chicory still lays in wait
My Winter is here though
Indeed, it's February here and we've just had the first 10 degree day since early January. Its been an unusually mild Winter in northwestern Ohio. To almost sound superstitious, I could say its a bad omen of some sort and highly unnatural. but a bad omen of what? The most obvious answer should be a late Spring that won't allow enough time to get the garden growing. I can start the transplants inside, but many of the vegetables still may not have enough time to grow. Really this spells bad news for many areas throughout the US this year.
In a divergent break from practical matters, I've been able to get outside more due to the milder cold. Maybe its not too off-the-wall to think that the typical hardfreeze won't come this year. However, thats highly unlikely as the climate would have to be seriously disrupted. Climate us a complex subject (hence why its so hard for the general public to accept climate change), but a hardfreeze is essential to killing off pests of all sorts and renewing the soil.
Despite the lack of physical Winter with its lasting snowfalls and ice-encased branches I can't help feeling the cold whipped into me. every time I set outside I can take a walk in a kind of private Winter that comes not from the snow, but an eternity of instinctive seasonal cycles that give rise to new phases. Just as phases of our own lives present change from previous destruction so chaos in the storm brings new ways. We see problems when we should see solutions. A phase of a season has its own harbinger- Winter for purification, Spring for growth, Summer for vigor, and Fall for realization. In that way, we always know we're never too far from the renewal of a gently pressing snowfall, We may grow and realize and display vigor, but in Winter all is frozen anew.