“When the Year Grows Old” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Excerpt: I cannot but remember When the year grows old— October—November— How she disliked the cold!
“When Giving is All We Have” by Alberto Rios
Excerpt: One river gives Its journey to the next. We give because someone gave to us.
“[little tree]” by E.E. Cummings
Excerpt: little tree little silent Christmas tree you are so little you are more like a flower who found you in the green forest and were you very sorry to come away? see i will comfort you because you smell so sweetly
“Lines for Winter” by Mark Strand
Excerpt: for Ros Krauss Tell yourself as it gets cold and gray falls from the air that you will go on walking, hearing the same tune no matter where you find yourself—
“November for Beginners” by Rita Dove
Excerpt: Snow would be the easy way out—that softening sky like a sigh of relief at finally being allowed to yield. No dice.
“February Evening in New York,” by Denise Levertov
Excerpt: As the stores close, a winter light opens air to iris blue, glint of frost through the smoke grains of mica, salt of the sidewalk.
“Deer Dancer” by Joy Harjo
Excerpt: Nearly everyone had left that bar in the middle of winter except the hardcore. It was the coldest night of the year, every place shut down, but not us. Of course we noticed when she came in. We were Indian ruins. She was the end of beauty. No one knew her, the stranger whose tribe we recognized, her family related to deer, if that’s what she was, a people accustomed to hearing songs in pine trees, and making them hearts.
