Today, I’m lighting a pile of wood outside in the flagstone firepit, to welcome the spring and also a pair of loved ones I haven’t seen in a good long while, who are adventurous enough to share dinner outside in February in the Pacific Northwest.

Last year, the snow was coming down hard, and power lines were down around the Portland metro. We were out for five days, with a brief flicker of heat and light in the middle—and we were the lucky ones.

They turned out to be a pretty good five days, at least for me. (For others in my area, they were manifestly not.) I had my dear Jeremiah, wool blankets for days, d’Artagnan pretending to be a blanket also, a fireplace and a lot of wood to burn in it, a stocked liquor cabinet, and a novel(?) worth savoring. And poetry.

The Electricity Goes Out Again at Imbolc

The house in storm has a talent for telling 
the restless tales of wind.

In the hours before fire, chimney sings 
a tree-whooshing song. And the douglas-firs 
moan and hollow-hum their wild approval.
Wind chime, direction-singer, clatters 
at the sear of mountains.

Candle flame, steady in the eye we make. 
My sleepless hand stroking the cat,
his scared-soft night-starred fur.  

Still a draft, in spite of the intervening year. Fun to share for today, though. Suggestions welcome.

May you savor the remaining winter storms as you can, and may the really bad ones pass you by. Happy spring-still-buried-in-winter.