December's Silent Night

 

Among the gratuitous

gifts of winter:

A large, rounded Cottonwood

feathered in frost.

Racks and stacks of firewood,

cured to be burned for our warmth.

Dark bones of trees stretch

long arms into cold air.

Ice Bells suspended 

above Bear Creek.

Loyal Northern Cardinals

bringing vibrant color to snowy days.

The dim glow of January sun

trying to melt persistent icicles.

The snow falling through

December's silent night.

© 2025 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1. McCarthy Lake - Kent County - Michigan

2, 3, 6, & 7. Home Yard & Home Woods

4. & 5. Townsend Park - Kent County - Michigan

Water into Ice

Water into water.

Turbulent into tranquil.

Merging. Converging.

Water into ice.

Blending. 

Ending the pain.

Mending your wounds.

Tending your hurting heart.

Ascending to a better place. 

© 2025 Richard Havenga

Photo Location: 

Pickerel Lake Park ~ Fred Meijer Nature Preserve - Kent County - Michigan 

 

Released

 

The interior voice keeps rising, 

slowly, like bubbles flowing below

the thin ice of a winter stream.

Ready to emerge and be heard,

or to be read and concurred.

The poet keeps writing,

the words keep rising,

hoping to be released.

© 2025 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations: Bear Creek - Townsend Park - Kent County - Michigan

February

 

After weeks of snow and overcast,

brilliant blue sky returns in February.

The ice on the lakes is silent,

buried under a crusty snow.

Although it's below zero and calm,

it feels good to breathe crystalline air,

to withstand the biting cold,

and absorb winter sunshine.

© 2024 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1. Home Woods - Cannonsburg, Michigan

2. McCarthy Lake - Kent County - Michigan

3. Grattan Township - Kent County - Michigan

Counting

 

A large number of Canada Geese

were scattered across the dark water

in the middle of McCarthy Lake.

A skin of ice was growing

from the shoreline to the center.

The geese kept calling to each other

with increasing urgency.

Soon, with a great commotion

of  honking and splashing,

a flock of twenty-three lifted off.

Followed, a few minutes later,

by the clamor of seventeen.

Then, counting rapidly, I watched 41

rise up and noisily leave the surface;

webbed feet beating the water,

feathers spread, beating the air.

Their strong wings carried bulky bodies

up and over the leafless trees.

They skillfully formed a broad "V",

and, sure of their intention, and direction,

the calling slowly diminished.

And now, convinced of their purpose,

they turned to the south,

leaving me at the edge

of the ice-fringed lake,

counting the days until spring.

© 2023 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1. 2. 3. McCarthy Lake - Kent County - Michigan

Fourteen

 

I'm sitting in my darkened

ice-fishing shanty,

with cold fingers,

with cold toes.

With my size fourteen

insulated snow boots,

I've kicked and cleared fourteen

inches of snow off the ice.

I've manually augured

a cylindrical hole

through fourteen inches

of clear and opaque ice.

I've dropped a teardrop,

baited with a waxworm,

fourteen feet into

the cold, dark water.

Now I sit and wait.

Now I jig the bait.

Sit.        Wait.

Jig bait.        Wait.

It's almost

this much work

waiting to catch

a poem.

A keeper.

© 2022 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1. 2. & 3. McCarthy Lake - Kent County - Michigan

Black Mirror

 

The black mirror of this pond

appears even darker when

surrounded by winter's first snow.

A Belted Kingfisher drops

from a Black Willow branch;

plunges into ice-cold water,

shatters black reflections

of overhanging trees;

comes up empty.

Rattles away to a new site.

Reflections return.

Winter tightens its grip.

Wants to make white ice.

© 2021 Richard Havenga

Photo Location: Cannon Township - Kent County - Michigan

The White Fire of Ice

The morning fog is a silk shawl

sliding over this November wetland.

Hanging upon dark silhouettes

of dying willow trunks.

Beneath the willows, ghost-like geese

swim slowly on still water.

Water that will soon transform

into the white fire of ice.

Ice that triggers departure

for this small, local flock.

A flock that will join

a larger formation.

A formation flying

farther south

in the efficient

V-shape.

A shape that has

served their lives

for all time.

They know when it's time.

© 2021 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1. & 3. Grattan Township Kent County - Michigan

2. Home Wetland - Cannonsburg, Michigan

4. Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge - SanAntonio, New Mexico

 

 

blue

 

liquid to solid

blue ripples into crystals

water into ice

© 2021 Richard Havenga

Photo Location:

Pickerel Lake Park / Fred Meijer Nature Preserve - Kent County - Michigan

Voice of the Winter Wind

Ribbons of cold wind
curl the ice-gray surface
of the lake in January. 

The voice of the water 
is lost under the voice 
of the winter wind.

Photo Locations:

1. & 3. McCarthy Lake - Kent County - Michigan

2. Thornapple River - Ada Dam - Kent County - Michigan

4. Pickerel Lake Park - Kent County - Michigan

Ice Bells

red osier dogwood

suspended over water

ice bells of Bear Creek

© 2020 Richard Havenga

Photo Location: Bear Creek ~ Townsend Park - Kent County - Michigan

Resilient

Our dreams will endure
under the silencing snow
of suppression.

Our lives will adapt
like resilient reeds
bending in the winter winds.

© 2020 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1. Home Woods - Cannonsburg, Michigan

2. 3. & 4. McCarthy Lake - Grattan Township - Kent County - Michigan

Deep Dreams

Any day now,
the lake will freeze over.

Winter
will tighten its grip.

You will dream

of the dry desert.

I will dream

of the Sanibel shorebirds.

Time has migrated here to the north,
to stand steadfast for many months.

Our dreams will deepen
like the silencing snow
of acceptance,

and will adapt 
like resilient reeds
in the winter winds.

© 2018 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1. & 6. Reeds Lake - East Grand Rapids, Michigan

2. & 3. Saguaro National Park - Arizona

4. & 5. Sanibel Island - Florida

7. McCarthy Lake - Cannonsburg, Michigan

The Smuggler

I have detected winter
being secretly smuggled in;

fringed on the edge of leaves,

collecting in low-lying fields 
as fingers of frost,
filigreed on arching grasses.

We all knew it was coming,
so we allowed the smuggler
deeper penetration
into our lives.

Putting on our clothes
of protection...

accepting the present...

dreaming of the future.

© 2018 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations: Townsend Park

Here in Winter

Gone are the delicious,
delightful days of spring;

gone are the long,
luxurious days of summer;

gone are the gorgeous,
glorious days of autumn;

now we endure the hard,
harsh days of winter;

drab and dreary,
rigid and relentless;

bleak and brittle,
but wait! ...

Observe with open eyes:

Magical moon shadows
are cast upon the snow.

Winter weeds exhibit
exquisite beauty.

Frozen fields are smoothed
by the simplicity of snow. 

Chickadees bring joy to the feeders.
Woodpeckers still hammer the hardwoods.

A thin skin of ice
fingers the narrow streams.

The glare of white sun
reflects the purity of snow.

Water in winter rivers
sings a colder, older song.

Here in winter 
are frozen lakes
you could walk on.

Here in winter
are wooded trails
you could ski on.

Here are the wonderful,
wondrous days
of winter.

© 2017 Richard Havenga

Photo Locations:

1, 3, & 6. Home Woods - Cannonsburg, Michigan

2. Grattan Township - Kent County, Michigan

4. Bear Creek - Townsend Park - Kent County, Michigan 

5. Grand River - Ada Township - Kent County, Michigan