It doesn't feel like winter yet, at least not down here in Philly. It's 60 degrees and rainy, which really cancels out the delight of warm weather.
But, in anticipation of the coming season, here's some winter poetry.
Approach of Winter
William Carlos Williams
| The half-stripped trees struck by a wind together, bending all, the leaves flutter drily and refuse to let go or driven like hail stream bitterly out to one side and fall where the salvias, hard carmine-- like no leaf that ever was-- edge the bare garden. |
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Like Brooms of Steel (1252) Emily Dickinson |
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| Like Brooms of Steel The Snow and Wind Had swept the Winter Street -- The House was hooked The Sun sent out Faint Deputies of Heat -- Where rode the Bird The Silence tied His ample -- plodding Steed The Apple in the Cellar snug Was all the one that played. | ||
Yes, it's been warm and rainy all day here too. So that, although we're almost a full week into December, it still feels like Thomas Hood's "November" --
ReplyDeleteNo sun--no moon!
No morn--no noon!
No dawn--no dusk--no proper time of day--
No sky--no earthly view--
No distance looking blue--
No road--no street--
No "t'other side the way"--
...just like the drive to and especially from work today.
where the salvias, hard carmine--
like no leaf that ever was--
edge the bare garden.
They do! Or, at least, they did. They lasted right up until a few days ago, with a positively unnatural red when everything else was brown and gray and dull green, and then they all died at once.
I also like Williams's "Winter Trees" (glad that I don't have to rake any more leaves):
All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.
I have a postage stamp of a yard, so there aren't many leaves to rake, but yes. That's lovely.
ReplyDeleteI'm ready for winter. I packed away my summer clothes, and now I want to wear my sweaters!