a winter poem
Feb. 23rd, 2005 12:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelidonI was sitting here at my desk, quiet, contemplative, a little bit feverish and somewhat melancholy, and was reminded of a poem I wrote about 19 years ago, which I'm still fond of, and thought I'd share. Despite the title, it's actually more appropriate for this time of year -- late midwinter, just beginning to shade into Spring, in thought if not in temperature. I think if I wrote it today, it would definitely say something about the early rising sap, tickling the tender flesh of the still-chilly trees, who are just beginning to sluggishly wake from their long winter dreamings.
I'm in the midst of winter house projects, my desk is covered with seed, plant and tree catalogs, wood furnace information, catalogs full of scary-looking agricultural implements. I am waiting at this moment for the delivery person to show up with 900 sq ft of hardwood flooring that I'll begin installing tomorrow. But at times I find my mind wandering off, looking ahead towards Spring and Summer, wondering what they will bring. There are so many projects planned, many committments, classes, connections, joyful obligations, things to do and build on our land -- this is a real turning point year in a lot of ways, and I wonder which of the seeds will bear fruit, and which will never reach the light. Time will tell.
And being practically voiceless at the moment from a sudden case of laryngitis (and wanting to preserve what little voice I have left) inclines me to be even more inward-looking than usual, a bodily-enforced vow of silence. Today is the Full Snow Moon, and then we move into the waning cycle. The Full Snow Moon seems to speak quietly and slowly, suggesting contemplation, assessment, simplification, inspired and encouraged by the first stirrings of the movements, the lively, insistant life that will come through gestation, to fruition, in the coming months.
Winter Solstice
Winter solitude
the words ring
like autumn harvest,
or clover honey
Winter whispers,
promising long quiet contemplations,
the fullness of completions,
reassuring, softly,
as the thorough smallness of snowflakes, falling slowly outside,
deafens my ears to the creaking of trees, settling
under their burden of ice
I know I will never be alone,
for ashes are life to the grains,
which feed the gaunt sparrows.
Each drop of decay draws
endless teeming lives, which scatter
the precious ashes again to humble dirt,
and the grateful living things which take them as their own;
Someday, I shall be a flower, and a snail
and paper, on which a man might lay his thoughts down softly,
as a lover with his beloved,
to rest with Spring's knowing promise of Winter,
and Winter's, gentle, of Spring.
The snow covers the grass, following the grain of the earth,
frozen, glistening, early,
still and brittle silence, now broken
by quiet trickles of water under the stiff stream-tops,
and the murmur of
patient waiting life
--(c) 1986, R. Hoffman
I'm in the midst of winter house projects, my desk is covered with seed, plant and tree catalogs, wood furnace information, catalogs full of scary-looking agricultural implements. I am waiting at this moment for the delivery person to show up with 900 sq ft of hardwood flooring that I'll begin installing tomorrow. But at times I find my mind wandering off, looking ahead towards Spring and Summer, wondering what they will bring. There are so many projects planned, many committments, classes, connections, joyful obligations, things to do and build on our land -- this is a real turning point year in a lot of ways, and I wonder which of the seeds will bear fruit, and which will never reach the light. Time will tell.
And being practically voiceless at the moment from a sudden case of laryngitis (and wanting to preserve what little voice I have left) inclines me to be even more inward-looking than usual, a bodily-enforced vow of silence. Today is the Full Snow Moon, and then we move into the waning cycle. The Full Snow Moon seems to speak quietly and slowly, suggesting contemplation, assessment, simplification, inspired and encouraged by the first stirrings of the movements, the lively, insistant life that will come through gestation, to fruition, in the coming months.
Winter Solstice
Winter solitude
the words ring
like autumn harvest,
or clover honey
Winter whispers,
promising long quiet contemplations,
the fullness of completions,
reassuring, softly,
as the thorough smallness of snowflakes, falling slowly outside,
deafens my ears to the creaking of trees, settling
under their burden of ice
I know I will never be alone,
for ashes are life to the grains,
which feed the gaunt sparrows.
Each drop of decay draws
endless teeming lives, which scatter
the precious ashes again to humble dirt,
and the grateful living things which take them as their own;
Someday, I shall be a flower, and a snail
and paper, on which a man might lay his thoughts down softly,
as a lover with his beloved,
to rest with Spring's knowing promise of Winter,
and Winter's, gentle, of Spring.
The snow covers the grass, following the grain of the earth,
frozen, glistening, early,
still and brittle silence, now broken
by quiet trickles of water under the stiff stream-tops,
and the murmur of
patient waiting life
--(c) 1986, R. Hoffman
no subject
Date: 2005-02-23 11:29 pm (UTC)- Lylythe
no subject
Date: 2005-02-24 12:30 am (UTC)