Northern Lights in Winter
Every time I think of departure, I wonder why those
are such exhausted and weathered thoughts.
They are the northern lights as the sky is bleached out green
this is what it looks like when souls go looking for erasure
when the absurdity of continuing is too bright, life pours out its gaudy,
but what of that pale ending? God says this is the color of oblivion.
The northern lights arrive screaming their color as God says, “Flame, flame up!"
To say, "All of life is suffering, thus, the world's pain makes sheets of color."
In other words, without a body, without earth, pain's distilled to color's joy.
Northern lights are one last entreaty to remain audience embodied to witness.
Look up at the edge of winter, see something lovely as spring burst forth
into sky flowers to celebrate the pain of life in darkness.
Mary Winslow has taught writing at colleges and universities throughout the US. Her poems have appeared in Sparks of Calliope, The Clayjar Review, The Road Not Taken, the Antigonish Review, The Avocet: Journal of Nature Poetry, and many other journals and magazines. She is the author of one chapbook, The Dungeness Crabs at Dusk, (Log Dog Press, 2017) and the editor of a full-length poetry collection, Dea Tacita, (Log Dog Press, 2017) written by poet Jeff Stier. She lives on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State.
Amethyst Review 