POETRY: ‘WINTER COMES TO GALVESTON BAY’

Contributed by: Robert Jones, professor of education

 

WINTER COMES TO GALVESTON BAY

Can this be the time?

Now does it begin?

Scent the myrrh in this moment;

Catch the sough of the wind

As it flows through the Firewheels,

Makes the Pin Daisies spin,

Pushes high flying geese to the south.

Change is in the air!

 

In past Autumns I long lingered

To the sounds of loons on the lake.

Now I watch whistling ducks chortle

As they rise from the bayou and take

Wing to chase the swift setting Sun.

I see them fly to the edge;

They are gone, it is done;

Not to return for many a day.

 

A walk by the Bay

On a fog-filled Fall night,

Drops fall from the trees like soft rain.

The fog shrouded stars still shine so bright;

It’s chilly-warm, wondrous yet strange!

A fog horn calls from off the Bay

With the sound of a slow moving train.

One more sign for this time of change.

 

This is not New England,

Not the Upper Midwest.

No change of bright color,

No ice, rarely snow.

No dark clouds to cover the Sun,

And the cold north winds seldom blow.

 

Instead…it is a shift in the wind.

It is a migrating bird’s parting call.

Bay fog rain at the end of the day,

Simple, subtle, but one and all

They mark the way

Winter comes softly

So softly.

Now Winter comes to Galveston Bay.