North Wind
The wind is coming out of the north.
I haven’t felt its bite in quite some time.
I’ll shiver all night,
and in a few weeks,
this won’t even be cold.
Goodbye to the sun—
you and I aren’t on the same agenda.
By the time I settle down
from drudgery and distraction,
there’s only deep dark thought.
I think I’m ready for bed,
and it’s not even 8:30.
They call it seasonal depression—
not an emergency,
but maybe more than the blues.
It’s that “melancholy fit” that Keats said
“falls sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,”
fostering the droop-headed flowers
and hiding the green hills in an April shroud.
Maybe that’s what this is—
a kind of fostering,
not a failing.
Blake once warned that
“Joy and woe are woven fine,
a clothing for the soul divine,”
and I think he was right.
I feel the threads pulling now—
the tug of sadness,
the weave of grace.
Wordsworth murmurs through the fading light,
“Though nothing can bring back the hour
of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower,
we will grieve not, rather find
strength in what remains behind.”
As I looked through poems on the winter I came across an amazing poem-
In Blackwater Woods
by Mary Oliver
Look, the trees
are turning
their own bodies
into pillars
of light,
are giving off the rich
fragrance of cinnamon
and fulfillment,
the long tapers
of cattails
are bursting and floating away over
the blue shoulders
of the ponds,
and every pond,
no matter what its
name is, is
nameless now.
Every year
everything
I have ever learned
in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side
is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
Keats again reminds me,
“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever;
its loveliness increases,
it will never pass into nothingness.”
Even the fading light
is still some kind of beauty.
The poets say to embrace it—
that it is necessary.
So here I am,
listening to their advice,
writing a song about letting the north wind do its work.
Song: North Wind
Verse 1
The north wind is here, I feel it’s bite
Been a long time and will shiver all night
Cold in my bones but I know before long,
This chill will fade, and I’ll call it strong.
Goodbye to the sun, you’re leaving too soon,
You fall from the sky before the moon.
By the time I slow from the day’s charade,
It’s dark inside, and the light has strayed.
Chorus
They call it the shadow season,
But maybe it’s a quiet reason.
To love what fades, to let it go,
To trust what only endings know.
Beauty stays beyond the sin—
The north wind’s working on me again.
Verse 2
Joy and sorrow, threads entwined,
A woven robe for the soul’s design.
I feel those pulls in the evening’s grace,
The tender tears the heart must face.
There’s strength to find in what remains,
A flicker of hope beneath the chains.
The light may fade, but it doesn’t die,
It hides in the hush of a winter sky.
They call it the shadow season,
But maybe it’s a quiet reason.
To love what fades, to let it go,
To trust what only endings know.
Beauty stays beyond the sin—
The north wind’s working on me again.
Bridge
Maybe this is the sacred ache,
The gentle bend that hearts must make.
Even the night, in silver hue,
Holds a light that’s breaking through.
They call it the shadow season,
But maybe it’s a quiet reason.
To love what fades, to let it go,
To trust what only endings know.
Beauty stays beyond the sin—
The north wind’s working on me again.
Outro
So here I am in the northern air,Listening close to a silent prayer.
Letting the north wind do its part,
Till sorrow tunes my steady heart.
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