Poem for a Partly-Warm Winter’s Night by William Ruleman

Poem for a Partly-Warm Winter’s Night
(26 December 2016, Montgomery Bell State Park, Burns, Tennessee)

The wind is blowing over the lake tonight
After a day so mild it was well-nigh warm.
The geese are crying out as if in fright;
The stage is set for a sure and simmering storm.
The world has rarely been so dark, we think.
Nothing will ever be the same again.
And now and then our musings reach the brink
Of sentimental thoughts of way back when.
We keep the window open all night long.
By and by, a colder air returns,
Rushed on the wind’s absurd, relentless song;
And some deep force inside our beings yearns
For nights of childhood oh so long ago
When we lay snug and heard the chill winds blow.

by William Ruleman

Editor’s Note: The highlighted lines in the midst of this Shakespearean sonnet stick in the mind. Most of us have moments when we yearn for childhood innocence (when ignorance was bliss).