Hello Decemberlings. Here’s some poetry I’ve been reading this season about Winter.
Jay Parini, Some Effects of Global Warming in Lackawanna County
Some Effects of Global Warming in Lackawanna County
The maples sweat now, out of season.
Buds pop eyes in wintry bushes
as the birds arrive, not having checked
the calendars or clocks. They scramble
in the frost for seeds, while underground
a sobbing starts in roots and tubers.
Ice cracks easily along the bank.
It slides in gullies where a bear, still groggy,
steps through coiled wire of the weeds.
Kids in T-shirts run to school, unaware
that summer is a long way off.
Their teachers flirt with off-the-wall assignments,
drum their fingers on the sweaty desktops.
As for me, my heart leaps high—
a deer escaping from the crosshairs,
skipping over barely frozen water
as the surface bends and splinters underfoot.
Mary Oliver, Snowy Night + plus some
Snowy Night
Last night, an owl
in the blue dark
tossed
an indeterminate number
of carefully shaped sounds into
the world, in which,
a quarter of a mile away, I happened
to be standing.
I couldn’t tell
which one it was –
the barred or the great-horned
ship of the air –
it was that distant. But, anyway,
aren’t there moments
that are better than knowing something,
and sweeter? Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness. I suppose
if this were someone else’s story
they would have insisted on knowing
whatever is knowable – would have hurried
over the fields
to name it – the owl, I mean.
But it’s mine, this poem of the night,
and I just stood there, listening and holding out
my hands to the soft glitter
falling through the air. I love this world,
but not for its answers.
And I wish good luck to the owl,
whatever its name –
and I wish great welcome to the snow,
whatever its severe and comfortless
and beautiful meaning.
A BONUS Mary Oliver winter poem I won’t pull-out here:
Mary Oliver, White Eyes
Linda Gregg, Winter Love
Winter Love
I would like to decorate this silence,
but my house grows only cleaner
and more plain. The glass chimes I hung
over the register ring a little
when the heat goes on.
I waited too long to drink my tea.
It was not hot. It was only warm.
William Carlos Williams, Winter Trees
Winter Trees
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.
ee cummings, if in beginning twilight of winter will stand
if in beginning twilight of winter will stand
if in beginning twilight of winter will stand
(over a snowstopped silent world)one
spirit serenely truly himself;andalone only as greatness is alone—
one(above nevermoving all nowhere)
goldenly whole,prodigiously alive
most mercifully glorying keen starwhom she-and-he-like ifs of am perceive
(but believe scarcely may)certainly while
mute each inch of their murdered planet grows
more and enormously more less:until
her-and-his nonexistence vanisheswith also earth's
--"dying" the ghost of you
whispers "is very pleasant" my ghost to— by ee cummings
A BONUS ee cummings winter poem I won’t pull-out here:
ee cummings, one winter afternoon
Robert Frost, Dust of Snow
Dust of Snow
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
Personal Winter Writing
If I may sneak in anything I’ve written, I’ll include it all. Here’s a number of different seasonal Winter flakes I’ve written I’ll share here:
Lyric Poems: Sustaining Holiday, Winter Holiday Season + All of the Holidays, Joy Under the Tree, Warmth of the Season
Winter Weather: Pastoral December Weather, Warmer than Average DC Weather, December Skies Over DC
Holiday: A Visit from St. Imminence, The Collected Renewals of Chanukah 2021
And if you missed it, here’s a Winter spotfiy playlist I made for you that keeps it on mentions of weather and calming balming sounds over consumer and holiday seasonal themes: “Said of Winter”
Stay cool,
— Adam Powers