The appalling intensity of winter 

has descended this day upon our home.

Outside my bedroom window, where I’m working,

there comes a blackness, shielded by the glass,

utterly pitch in hue and quality.

The cold, which is not easily stopped 

by walls and windows, penetrates,

and though heat flows through the ducts,

my shoulders are slightly hunched and

I am tense against the cold.

Within this dark, cold world we are an absolute island 

of life’s brighter qualities.  Warmth from our furnace, 

our stove, our bodies, even the tiny electronic radiance 

of radio and computer innards do their job, 

warming us within our modern shell.

Light, though dim and inadequate, falls from the 

graying sixty watt bulb, here in the bedroom; 

a scattering of gnats lay in the bowl, remembrance of summer.

But in our congregation it is adequate: lamplight 

reflecting amber tones from maple floor and paneled walls. 

There are the sounds of life: one small voice and

another voice: a mother, exasperated, placating, cajoling, 

rewarding the small voice; and a less intimate voice: 

a comically-dramatic radio voice; and finally 

there is the silent voice of a teen in her room.

From outside there is no sound which penetrates.

Tonight there is no howling wind, but

the stillness which comes with a heavy chill,

the chill which settles on, then pierces, any defense,

working down from heaven and up from earth.

The house blusters and competes: whoosh and rumble of 

furnace and fan, forcing unnaturally dry air beneath 

the floors, then up into our home; but while 

some rooms radiate warmth from this mechanical furnace,

other rooms are still chilly and will be

until the natural furnace is fierce again, come April.

The additional intrusion of radio hysterics,

dish-washer cacophony and our own living noises

only serve to reinforce our sense of isolation 

from the majestic quiet outside.

This heavy blackness makes our home smaller

than it otherwise would feel. It is an isle, an outpost, 

insulated from the timber by a plain of grass, 

a clearing on our knap of earth.  Our link to the world is a thin, 

meandering trail of gravel and frozen mud, uphill, 

through the woods, to the uptown graveled county road. 

There is no one else.  Neighbors, few and distant, 

serve only to intensify our isolation.

There is a certain, quiet fear which descends upon us, 

despite our warmth, on this, the first night of true winter.

It is the withdrawing into ourselves which is the cause.

Just as I know the turtle has stilled its heart

to a rare, infrequent beat; buried itself 

beneath the cold earth, and so protect its very life; 

so we must retreat indoors, and listen to the unnatural sounds

of our own making, breath close air, think close thoughts.

Like the turtle, we insulate ourselves from the frigid air,  

quiet our minds, for everyone knows thought takes on

a grander, frightening proportion at night, in the darkness; 

and now we begin, this the spell of long and frightening nights.