‘Winter’s Perfection’ and Other Poetry by Carl Kinsky

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Winter’s Perfection

A Zen aesthetic guides winter’s perfection—
uncluttered, austere, natural, still, subtle,
embracing flaws and daring introspection,
a quiet season, slow, without the hustle

of spring and summer, harvest’s rush in fall.
A single tree’s bent by the weight of the snow,
a peasant’s hunched beneath the wood he hauls,
a bridge through mountains leads to huts below.

Winter’s sublime in these ink-painted scrolls,
and yet we hang long strings of blinking lights.
Although this season we try to extol
less frenzied times we’ve children to delight

so overdecorate, implicitly
Abandoning winter’s simplicity.

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In Winter Some Find Beauty

Just stubble’s left where once stalks stood in rows.
Where tassels rustled during summer rains,
snow’s scattered like salt spread so nothing grows
Except for loneliness and empty pain.

Above in meadows where lean calves grew fat,
abundance gently reigned and creatures teemed;
now grasses cower, safer to lay flat
and silent while winds tear and ravens scream.

On hilltops stand trees, shivering, beseeching
the heavens, beggars pleading with the sky
for warmth, more daylight, leafless branches reaching
for answers but receiving no reply.

In winter some find beauty though it be
A beauty for eyes blind to what I see.

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Carl Kinsky is a country lawyer living in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri.