Winter Thoughts
In honor of the first snowflake of the season (mine), I give you two poems about winter by one of my favorite poets, David Budbill (from While We’ve Still Got Feet):
Winter Is the Best Time
Winter is the best time
to find out who you are.
Quiet, contemplation time,
away from the rushing world,
cold time, dark time, holed-up,
pulled-in time and space
to see that inner landscape,
that place hidden and within.
Winter: Tonight: Sunset
Tonight at sunset, walking on the snowy road,
my shoes crunching on the frozen gravel, first
through the woods, then out into the open fields
past a couple of trailers and some pickup trucks, I stop
and look at the sky. Suddenly: orange, red, pink, blue,
green, purple, yellow, gray, all at once and everywhere.
I pause at this moment at the beginning of my old age
and I say a prayer of gratitude for getting to this evening,
a prayer for being here, today, now, alive
in this life, in this evening, under this sky.
posted by Barbara at 10:29 AM
5 Comments:
Love the first poem, especially. I've always felt winter to be a bit "dangerous" and especially unpredictable -- perhaps more of our inner life surfaces under the relative safety of dark skies and long nights. Kind of like the Dreaming World coming Awake, or the Shadow Selves stepping up to the edges of the fire's light. Exhilirating and revealing, and sometimes scary!
Happy Christmas to the three of you!
-- F.
F -- You said this so well. It was almost like a continuation of the poem! I especially like "the Shadow Selves stepping up to the edges of the fire's light".
Hope your Christmas was spent with people you know and love.
I love a good winter poem.
for me there is a winter fairy with pale white skin and a gown made of soft sparkling fabric that looks like snow and ice, (and her hair is jet black like wet roots in the snow.)
Love the "like wet roots in the snow!"
-- F.
Squirrel -- I agree with Anon F about the "wet roots in the snow" line. Phrases like that call up such vivid imagery.
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