Hello Sojourners,
I admit that I'm having a hard time keeping up with all the reading I usually do. This season is busy -- but happily so with friends and family face to face. I have been remembering to be grateful for being able to physically be with people. Remember four years ago? We were about to plunge into isolation and didn't even know it yet.
That isolation during Covid's worst days was a kind of cruel wintering. I'm so glad to be on this side of it.
This poem was tapping at my brain on a drive to work this week. I love it when that happens. I hope to catch up with all your blogs as soon as I can...maybe even Christmas Day when there will be delicious time of quiet as my adult children sleep in and the cats and I are up early.
I wish you good wintering.
Wintering
If all the poems were of summer
there would be
no wintering blankets
of hush
piled high this season.
No red cardinal hearts
beating against snow
giving grief a rest
in spaces of joy.
If all the poems were of summer there would be no rush of shivery piney boughs or cups of cocoa to sip after coming in from the cold.
If all the poems were of summer you would have less reason to return, from a big busy world home safe and sound as smoke from our chimney climbs as high and as blue as December stars.
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| Der Winter. [No Date Recorded on Shelflist Card] Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2003680992/>. |
Linda, the repeating line works so beautifully here at the beginning of each stanza, and the sensory enchantment is strong - the red cardinal, the hot cocoa, the cold, and the scent of pine. It's delicious on so many levels - - I love the reminder that we must have the winter to appreciate the summer. I saw on a friend's page this week this quote: the comfort zone is a delightful place where nothing grows. It's been churning in my mind ever since, and your post gives me what I needed to put it in perspective. It's the fallowing of the field before the wild growing season. Thank you so much! I love this poem, and that it came on a drive makes me want to take to the road and see if that magic will work for me!
ReplyDeleteI love this Wintering poem, Linda, even tho I'm in Florida. It reminds me of my kid case in snow country. And this lovely line about Home is for everyone, everywhere:
ReplyDelete"to return, from a big busy world"
Many appreciations.
Anon. above is Bookseedstudio :)
ReplyDeleteSending you love!
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ReplyDeleteI like opening each stanza 'If all the poems were summer..." It is so true. Thanks you. I am late with the comments.
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