the cold, the silence

Winter

Winter. You can see the trees
through the forest again, and this light
is no light but insight:
there is nothing new
without the sun.

And still, even the night is not
hopeless, as long as there is snow
darkness never fully comes, no,
there is the clarity of a certain belief
that it will never become dark entirely.
As long as there is snow, there is hope.


(a poem by Herman de Coninck, my translation. i like its solemn simplicity and the way it invokes so many images through the silence between the words. and i love the cold that is breathing in the poem.)