Poem on your mind

[giselle]

This poem is also topical just now for my latitude. I prefer a more thorough winter than we get in the north part of Virginia, but it'll do.

I like your phrase, DWill .. "a more thorough winter", very expressive and, I think, poetic.

[Saffron]

This poem is also topical just now for my latitude. I prefer a more thorough winter than we get in the north part of Virginia, but it'll do.

I like your phrase, DWill .. "a more thorough winter", very expressive and, I think, poetic.

I had the same thought when I read it.

[Penelope]

.

"a more thorough winter", very expressive and, I think, poetic.

It is effing snowing here....and I am a bit fed up....

"Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;"
As You Like It (II, vii, 174-176)

LOL

[realiz]

I love the snow!

Here is a nice poem with snow:

First Snow, Kerhonkson
By Diane di Prima b.

for Alan

This, then, is the gift the world has given me
(you have given me)
softly the snow
cupped in hollows
lying on the surface of the pond
matching my long white candles
which stand at the window
which will burn at dusk while the snow
fills up our valley
this hollow
no friend will wander down
no one arriving brown from Mexico
from the sunfields of California, bearing pot
they are scattered now, dead or silent
or blasted to madness
by the howling brightness of our once common vision
and this gift of yours—
white silence filling the contours of my life.

[giselle]

It is effing snowing here....and I am a bit fed up....

"Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;"
As You Like It (II, vii, 174-176)

LOL

Nice Shakespearean quip, Penny. Don't worry, spring will roll around and then you can get out the gardening tools rather than the snow shovel! The following lonesome lines came to mind, wherein Paul and Art seem less than enamoured with winter:

Then I'm laying out my winter clothes
And wishing I was gone
Going home
Where the New York City winters aren't bleeding me
Bleeding me, going home

from The Boxer, Simon and Garfunkel

[Penelope]

Oh Wow, thanks giselle!!

S&G and 'The Boxer' - written on Runcorn Station platform, allegedly....(It is about five miles from here).

I also love the snow, realiz....but this town is built on salt...and snow turns to slush....then freezes...and everybody falls over....which is quite funny...unless one is one of the tumblers....LOL.

I'm very busy preparing for Christmas - I have 14 for Christmas Dinner - and I've bought extra knives and forks....and spoons...(sigh!)..but I would hate to be alone at Christmas....I tell myself...LOL

[Saffron]

Oh Wow, thanks giselle!!
I'm very busy preparing for Christmas - I have 14 for Christmas Dinner - and I've bought extra knives and forks....and spoons...(sigh!)..but I would hate to be alone at Christmas....I tell myself...LOL

14 sounds like lots of work, but trust me, Christmas alone is not so great.

[Grim]

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

-W.B. Yeats

[Saffron]

We are almost to the shortest day of the year here in the northern hemisphere; just a few more days. I first heard this poem during a performance of the Washington Revels about 10 years ago. I have read it each year ever since. The line that grabs and holds me is, "To drive the dark away." I think this is the impetus behind so much of social behavior. Over the past few weeks the statement, "Life is hard" has been made to me almost daily. Life is hard and it seems to me that all we can do is to join with each other and drive the dark away with the light of our voices in song and story.

The Shortest Day
And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.

Susan Cooper

[Penelope]

Saffron wrote: Life is hard and it seems to me that all we can do is to join with each other and drive the dark away with the light of our voices in song and story.

I did like that Susan Cooper poem and I haven't heard it before, so thankyou.

Life is sometimes hard...Saffron....but mysteriously sweet....like this poem

Christmas by John Betjeman

The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.

The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
'The church looks nice' on Christmas Day.

Provincial Public Houses blaze,
Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze,
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says 'Merry Christmas to you all'.

And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.

And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children's hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say 'Come!'
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?

And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.