Triptych on the Last Day of Winter

Joyce Ritchie

Still Life
All day it has snowed.
And here am I - summer girl -
trapped in this interminable
tide of transition,
when nothing planned will happen:
no ceremonial storing away of winter,
no slipping into the silken promise
of spring. I am nothing but here,
with nothing to do but give in
to the lavish silence of snow. 

Figure and Ground
Against the grey wash sky,
a girl in a red jacket
and a golden dog
frolic in a snow globe,
grateful for this gift
of the season’s last swirl.

Repose
In late afternoon’s half-light
we burrow under a blanket, curled
in opposite corners of the blue couch.
The dog stretches, sighs in her sleep.
It’s been a good enough day,
the way it turned out.

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Joyce Ritchie
Joyce Ritchie grew up among Midwest farm fields and now lives in the coastal Mid-Atlantic; place infuses her poems. A Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, her poetry publications include Autumn Sky Daily Poetry, Blue Heron Review, Canary, Passager, Persimmon Tree, Sunlight Press, and the poetry anthology The Nature of Our Times, a collaborative initiative of Paloma Press, Poets for Science, United by Nature, and the Kent State Wick Poetry Center.