One Prose Poem by Concetta Pipia

 

Winter’s Exposed Frame

The year bends its back to the North. It bares the bones of the earth. Colors fade. The landscape stands stripped, sharp beneath a pale, piercing sun.

Form finds prominence. Dark evergreens—pines, firs, spruce, and cypresses—hold their steadfast green. The outline of deciduous trees stands revealed, skeletal, geometric. Eucalyptus scents drift crisp and clean through brittle air.

Trees carry their histories. One rises with gnarled grace. Another wears a coat of pale gray. Each surface etched by passing seasons. Silence settles thick and deep. Life retreats beneath frost. Yet stillness is rich, deliberate, complete. Wind whispers through bare branches, weaving snow and air into subtle, symmetrical patterns.

Water slows. Where it once leapt and roared, it now lies thin, reflective, hushed. Ice spreads across the surface. A fragile film flickers in cold light. Stones, once hidden, are revealed. Cattails and rushes stand rigid along the margins. Red osier threads the banks with scarlet veins. Frozen falls hang suspended. Monuments to time paused.

Gardens sleep under frost. Holly displays red berries like sparks against muted earth. Japanese skimmia nods bright amid the snow. Winter aconite pushes delicate yellow crowns through frost. Leaves crunch beneath booted feet, recounting summer’s surrender. Feeding roots below. Mist rises, outlining delicate webs in fleeting, fragile light. Beaded grace, brief and trembling.

In human hearts, winter invites retreat. The world narrows behind frozen windows. The hearth glows. The lamp marks a small circle of warmth. Friendship and welcome anchor the dark hours. Time slows. The mind weighs the past. Lessons sift quietly, slowly, beneath the hush of snow. In frozen fields, quiet honesty lives. Beneath the cold sky, there is a promise: life, though paused, persists.

Winter’s exposed frame holds the seed of what is to come. It offers a measured blueprint. A frozen foundation for spring to fill. In this austere beauty, subtle grace waits—a quiet testament to the structure that sustains us all.

Concetta Pipia is a writer, poet,  and editor raised and living in New York City.

Her work has been published in international anthologies and literary magazines including "The Raven's Perch," (2023) and "The Wise Owl" (November, 2023) and "The Suffolk County Poetry Review," (2024). She is an Administrator of several online writing groups and a Moderator as well.

Ms. Pipia attended Parsons School of Design (BFA), Touro University School of Law (J.D.), and the University of Phoenix (MBA/HRM).