Winter In The South Poem by Daniel Brick

(I)

A feeble sun rises over foothills
in the high country across the desert.
It is already a diminished day,
cold, dark clouds, piercing winds.
And then there you are, bundled
in a winter coat and around your neck
a brightly patterned scarf. You walk
in brown leather boots with poise
and confidence, body and soul
equally geared for this day's task.

The way you trudge through snow
reminds me of classical music
that depicts landscapes. Some are
flat and barren, others with ragged rocks
half-buried in the dry earth, still others
are submerged in a moving stream taking them
over a falls into a quiet lagoon. You are
the observer, you take these landscapes
into your poetic mind and transform them
into the stuff of literature.

(II)
I stand near you, but not
next to you. There are too many guests
who want to be in the disc of your admirers.
The disc slowly rotates, rendering the scene
blurred. Be warned: these admirers will drain
you, they will take your essence and gain
renewed strength and age, but you will be drained.
Like the pelican who savages her own breast
to bleed the blood that will nourish her children.
You are that pelican. Oh, how quickly our talk
shifts to sacrifice.

(III)

It is required
That you do awake your faith...
Dear life redeems you.
"A Winter's Tale, " Shakespeare

Are you the new Muse? ... the one
who will greet each poet as if
he were a whole being. It is a fusion
of flesh and soul within The Spirit...
It is a quartet of spiritual powers:
Mind - Body - Soul -Spirit.