January 2023

I savor my visits to the farm in January.  It is here that I find the crystalline beauty and Zen-like quietude that epitomizes winter in New England. Amid the piercing cold, the deep snow, and the long slog of blank days ahead, lies an unbroken trail of fresh possibilities - mystical in their potential and promise of renewal.

For Lola

by Lila Linda Terry

The orchard is asleep.

All the weetness of the berries

is driven deep in the ground,

and is alive in the frozen roots.

The warm juices are brewing even now

in the deepest of winter

under a cloak of white.

The farmer rests.

She can sleep in the morning,

and she doesn’t watch the sky,

the soil, the pickers.

A frost does not matter.

She may allow herself a winter’s nap,

a crossword puzzle,

to read the pruning book.

She sits.

The world is white.

The night is deep.

Quiet presides.

Rest begets earnest labors.

The deepness of winter,

the crystalline icy night sky

will bring forth our

summer’s rich sweetness.

An original Old Frog Pond Farm & Studio plein air poet, Lila Linda Terry has been dabbling in poetry since she was twelve. She lives in Cambridge, Mass., where she has had a practice in medical massage therapy and alternative health counseling for forty years. She is a certified Sageing leader in the conscious ageing movement. Lila oversees the growth of a unique plant called the Light Root which is at different locations in New England. Light Root (Dioscorea batatas) is known for its ability to strengthen the inner light in human beings. “For Lola” was first published in the plein air chapbook, An Extravagant Canopy.