Poetic Musings on Winter

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called snowflakes "the poem of the air," and although that particular poem takes a turn for the melancholy, I have been considering the poetry in the winter scene outside all day. This morning, I awoke around dawn in order to take Andrew to the airport, and despite the incredibly scary roads out of home and into Nashville, I still noticed (in between bouts of terror whenever a semi would sweep past me and drown my windshield in vision-defying sludge) the beauty of the snow in the countryside. The vast expanses of field that stretch out on either side of the road glittered in the early morning sun, and the trees were all softly laced in white. I just kept thinking - this is how winter should look, even though it might not make for the best driving conditions. When I finally arrived home (35 minutes longer than it normally would have taken me), I wasn't quite ready to stay inside just yet, so I strapped on my snowboots and went out exploring behind house with the camera. I was looking particularly for one certain type of tree that I had seen from the roadside, but unfortunately I never found one. I did, however, have an excellent time tramping through the snow like a little girl. Apparently the forested little area behind my house sees high critter traffic - there were little animal footprints everywhere! Anyway, I tried to capture some of the beauty of my little adventure, but of course my dinky camera didn't really do it justice. My frolic in the snow got me thinking again about poetry, though, so I thought I'd include some favorites.


This one captures the prettiness I was feeling outside...most poets seem to want to focus on the doom and gloom aspect of winter, but ol' Lucy Maud was a positive lady.

A Winter Day by Lucy Maud Montgomery
I

The air is silent save where stirs
A bugling breeze among the firs;
The virgin world in white array
Waits for the bridegroom kiss of day;
All heaven blooms rarely in the east
Where skies are silvery and fleeced,
And o'er the orient hills made glad
The morning comes in wonder clad;
Oh, 'tis a time most fit to see
How beautiful the dawn can be!



II

Wide, sparkling fields snow-vestured lie
Beneath a blue, unshadowed sky;
A glistening splendor crowns the woods
And bosky, whistling solitudes;
In hemlock glen and reedy mere
The tang of frost is sharp and clear;
Life hath a jollity and zest,
A poignancy made manifest;
Laughter and courage have their way
At noontide of a winter's day.


III

Faint music rings in wold and dell,
The tinkling of a distant bell,
Where homestead lights with friendly glow
Glimmer across the drifted snow;
Beyond a valley dim and far
Lit by an occidental star,
Tall pines the marge of day beset
Like many a slender minaret,
Whence priest-like winds on crystal air
Summon the reverent world to prayer.






I love the thought of the "whistling solitude." For once, the depiction of solitude here is not negative...it is peaceful and joyful even.


Here's on that's a little more typically morose/thought-provoking:

Lines for Winter by Mark Strand

Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself --
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.

And finally, one that is just nice. I love WCW.

Winter Trees by William Carlos Williams

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.