Poets and Poems - Naia

All That Remains

Of all the seasons
it is, perhaps, winter
that seeps in the deepest
holds on the longest
faces the struggle to let go
with a tenacity for staying,
the lakeshore a self-portrait
sculpted with her icy fingers-
one of the last she relinquishes-
waning now in these
lengthening days.

The old jack pine bears
her touch still, the way
a lover might, yearning
for one last glimpse,
as if he alone
could keep her here,
the few snowy clumps
on his drooping branches
all that remains before
the first crocus.

[Poem written August, 2009 upon viewing "The Jack Pine" by Tom Thomson, oil on canvas, 1916, on display at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario.]

Photo credit: Deborah P. Kolodji

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