I grew up in Southern California.
Means that I grew up without any snow and ice, any of the things
that winter really represents for those of us who
live on the East Coast.
And consequently, I still have a magical fascination
for snow and ice.
I've always seen it as a traditional, symbolic death
of growing things.
I suffer terribly from the cold.
I've got rheumatism.
And yet, there's still something perfect, and crystal,
and beautiful about the cold that fascinates me.
I wrote this poem called "Winter Ode."
"Winter, winter, winter.
There is winter in my heart.
I am past 30, and winter is like my feet,
frozen animals in the snow.
Winter, winter.
The name of everyone I love rings in those syllables.
Winter, winter.
Everyone I wait for is asleep.
And winter is the winter of my aching throat
and my hands that look in the dark for something
warm to touch, for something warm to touch.
Winter, winter.
You remind me that winter numbs me.
I cannot feel what I am touching.
A friend.
A round, a fat sun.
A man with red, round face, blazing with ragged fire,
blazing with his need to be the center of this system,
he says, you hate young girls, Diane,
forgetting that you, yourself, are a young girl.
And I think of my wintry smile, my eyes of winter
that want to freeze all the young, warm girls of the world
who are stealing you, the man I love, away from me.
Those girls who take ancient husbands away
from ancient wives and the foolish, ancient women
they will become, who will lose their even
more ancient husbands to other young girls.
And no one sees winter.
The deep winter, the winter of every night
alone, of an empty house, of gold snakes,
of chainy metal that are warmer, more alive, touch me oftener
than you, the man I love.
The man with winter in his ax.
The man who puts winter between himself and me,
the man who makes me ache with cold, who makes me
think of the moon.
Look at the frozen brook.
Winter, winter, a syllable of snow.
A whisper in a blizzard, that's how my love for you
is received, like a whisper in a blizzard.
I remember always the word that defines my life, winter.
Winter, winter, winter, winter, winter."