Author:  Sally Rosenthal

Published: 2026.  See the Book COVER HERE.

I begin a personal literary journey into the book, Winter Pilgrimage:  A Journey Through Later Life, with a a  careful look of the book’s cover. Here, I see an elderly woman  who peers off into the distance. In her left hand,  she barely balances a long cane that is dragging off behind her as she stops in a swirling, snowy landscape. Her back is towards the viewer.

I think of the book’s title, Winter Pilgrimage: A Journey Through Later Life,  and I consider if this elderly woman could be on a solitary pilgrimage. Does she have a destination in mind at this moment?

I feel the chill of the blustery winter day and imagine the distant landscape. A lonely  figure, bundled up , perhaps, for a long trek to the next destination .  Or, she may be lost, alone, facing the gathering darkness of a winter day.

I will search for some answers as I begin reading the collection of fifty-eight poems by Sally Rosenthal.

I notice that all of the poems are placed on the right side of the pages.  The left page is blank,  except for a few of the longer  prose pieces.

I like the feeling I have when I can concentrate on just this one poem.  This gives the feeling of slowing down as I focus on one poem without any interruptions, visually, as I read the collection. This allows the opportunity to breathe and slow down the pace of reading, and I relax and step into the poems, one at a time, with space to contemplate the verses  and enjoy the experience.

As I begin reading one by one, I wonder, if  this will be a typical, physical journey to  a sacred shrine or a cathedral, a holy place:  Is this pilgrimage  a metaphysical journey with a destination that is not yet revealed?   Will the poems and prose pieces take the reader  to a pre-planned destination?  Are there other participants on this journey?

At Seventy, (Page 19) is the first poem in the book.

The speaker  directs our attention to

          creativities stone in my hands

We see that this stone is so large  or heavy that she must use two hands to hold it up for our inspection. She directs us the the unseen inner terrain of that stone where she reveals it holds

          rough edges rivers of years

          could not wear down…

Finally, we have the image of those rough edges

            now tumbling into words.

Thus, the scene is set for the readers to begin to hear the voice of the aging pilgrim  who is standing in a snowstorm of  her life journey.

The stone is an important metaphor that establishes and ties together the actions of lifting, moving, letting go of something precious, like security,  to allow something new to develop.  The movement of the stone dropping and at the same time, changing  form and purpose,  as her nimble fingers still clutch the stone.

Change, movement, and revision are established in the opening poem.  A reader will  begin to feel a theme that will continue throughout the entire collection.

Along with the changes taking place in the natural world, our speaker weaves in the changes she is experiencing in her own body.

Getting On  (Page 29)

There is a longer  prose discourse at this point in the sequence  that  describes personal physical  changes and  the body’s necessary demand for movement.

I never feel older than when I get out of bed…

She gives the reader a list of physical changes and compares them with the earlier years when she was forty,

The

“me” I hold inside still thinks of herself as, depending on the day,

a woman in her forties, fifties, or occasionally  sixties. My

personality, intellect, and emotional life are the same, for the

most part, as they were decades ago.

A solitary conversation reflects on her inner feelings and thoughts, she also adds a more realistic account of how  she still does the daily chores presently, yet she  adds

but today my body reminds me  in no uncertain terms

that I am old. In these moments, I would like nothing more than to

set household chores aside in favor of a second cup of coffee…

Delicately weaving the colorful threads of a love story, Unlike Other Loves (Page 43),

Rosenthall develops another theme that runs through the Winter Pilgrimage of her life.

Unlike other loves,  

            I cannot see his face,

            arriving as he did,

            twenty years into my blindness…

            I do not need to know how

            silver streaks his once blond hair

            or that his green eyes

            are flecked with hazel…

The final poem in this collection is, The Coming Winter (Page 133)

I believe the final thoughts expressed in this poem are the answer to my initial question about the book’s cover.  This pilgrimage is both physical  and metaphysical.

While it is a journey of a life that has experiences of  many unusual circumstances, it is also the expression of a quiet, inner, and  spiritual life and a soft silent prayer to God

to set me in this liminal space

for yet  a few more years.

This brings me to ask readers about the imagery of themes in the book.

Can you search to discover in the collection of poems the benefit of  beginning a pilgrimage in the winter season?

Why did the author choose the winter season as the setting for her poems and prose pieces in the book.

How does this collection of poems reflect the imagery on the front cover of the book?

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Copyright. Lynda McKinney Lambert, 2026.

__How about you?