Winter Berries

Winter Berries

Connor Patrick Wood

Midway through my journey in the wood
I knew the fire: in blazing red they hung,
higher than the bracken or the dung,
lovelier for the want of color where should

dance leaves in flower, stood Persephone above
the common tomb. But the chickadee rasped its harsh
warning in the empty wood; the marsh
stood cold; sun’s last light outlasted love.

Yet beauty in December dusk must know
how Hades comes to rust, how through the dim
the light lays down her thread. Though ground is cold,

the pivot of the dying year (thin
and brittle) bids me in silence pass from old
to new, to glory where these flames grow.

---

Connor Patrick Wood
Poet & Writer

Connor Patrick Wood is a poet and Substacker (https://cultureuncurled.substack.com) living in Arlington, Massachusetts. He holds a BA in creative writing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a PhD in religion and science from Boston University. Before he left academia, Connor’s research on the cognitive science and psychology of ritual was funded by the John Templeton Foundation. He has published poetry at the Rabbit Room Substack and elsewhere.

Photography by Shana Van Roosbroek