pt. 1. Winter as a time of sorrow and barrenness. "A fire by ice" / Jamaica Kincaid -- "Cold night" and other haiku / Matsuo Bashō -- "Ice and light" / Barry Lopez -- from The cloister walk / Kathleen Norris -- "While we were arguing" and "Apple dropping into deep early snow" / Jane Kenyon -- "November : old guys" / John Jerome -- "A winter burial" / Robert Finch -- pt. 2. Winter as a time to be scoured, and a time to succor the scoured. "Wickedness" / Ron Hansen -- from Concio hyemalis : a winter sermon / William Cooper -- "Closing the circle" / Jim Dale Huot-Vickery -- "Bitter cold, living in the village" / Po Chü-Yi -- "Winter" / Donald Hall -- pt. 3. Winter as a time of shoring ourselves up. "Weather report : February 10" / Kathleen Norris -- "The cold" / John Updike -- from the Treasury of well-turned verse / Vidyākara -- from The writing life / Annie Dillard -- from A romantic education / Patricia Hampl -- "Season of change and loss" and "Good-by and keep cold / Jane Kenyon -- "The pond in winter" / Henry David Thoreau.

pt. 4. Winter as a time of purity and praise. from the Daily Hallel (Hallel sheb'khol yom) -- "Winter haven" / Rachel Carson -- "On a dark, black night, love lights a lamp" and other Sufi poems / Sultan Bahu -- "Winter" / Annie Dillard -- from Soul among lions : the musings of a bootleg preacher / Will D. Campbell -- "Through the ice" / William J. Vande Kopple -- pt. 5. Winter as a time of delight and play. from Songs of the dream people / James Houston -- "Snow" / Mark A. Noll -- from An American childhood / Annie Dillard -- from Indian Creek chronicles : a winter alone in the wilderness / Pete Fromm -- "The winter of the great snows" / E.B. White -- "When the clouds have passed away" and other poems from The fisherman's calendar / Yun Sŏndo -- "This morning" / Jane Kenyon.