Wintry Light

 

It was one of those chilly and empty afternoons 

in early winter,

 

when the daylight is silver

  rather than gold,

and pewter    rather than silver.

-- G.K. Chesterton, “God of the Gongs” (1914)

 

~ ~ ~

 

People were wearing

lace shawls of snowflakes.

A low dark cloud was sitting there,

thinking of some way

to unload snow  over the city.

-- Len Deighton, Funeral in Berlin (1964)

 

Dakota Winter

Ever restlessly moving West, the young Wisconsin native  winds up in as-yet-untamed  Dakota:

Level as a floor,  these acres were,

and dotted with the  bones  of bison.

-- Hamlin Garland, A Son of the Middle Border (1917), p. 244

Sufficiently disheartening.  Yet how much moreso, as the season grew bitter, and those bleached bones  proved the only bulwark against death by freezing:

Winter!  No man knows what winter means 

until he has lived through one  in a pine-board shanty

on a Dakota plain 

with only buffalo-bones  for fuel.

-- Hamlin Garland, A Son of the Middle Border (1917), p. 248

The Brightening, though Frozen Solstice (December, 2019)

This time each year,  the sun doth wend,

signaling days-dying’s end.

Henceforth  throughout  the grateful lands

our daily dose of light  expands.

Thus do we, cheered  by this faint grace,

take heart for Winter’s chill embrace.

And though the brisk winds  scourge the earth,

look forward to  our Spring rebirth.

Christi dedico in nomine;
Gratias agimus, Domine.

Resurgence (pre-Spring)

drooping  branchlets     dotted

with  unbroken buds,

having survived the blight

to greet

another year . . .

[ -- John Updike, Couples (1968)]

U Rule, Phil

For a week  we have been shuddering beneath a Polar Vortex, which had somehow wandered so far south of its normal and proper ambit, it was as though you looked out your kitchen window and saw a Polar Bear.   Word on the street is  that the errant Vortex  is packing its bags  and heading back home. The morning mercury is revisiting double digits, though only barely. And now, on this glorious Groundhog Day, word comes from an unimpeachable and furry source, that Spring is just around the corner.

In honor of the triumphant annual return of Philippe de Punxsutawney (to give him his ancestral name), on today’s most joyous occasion, we offer a link to our musings on these lovable though chunky marmots:

https://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/search/label/humble%20woodchuck

Cold Snap

Dim dawn

Pale day

Thin wind

Slate gray

Pond froze,

ice cracks.

Snowload --

branch breaks.

Dark dusk

Woods mute

Night falls:

Dead weight.

Indian Spring

After a frigid week and an all-night drenching, the earth awoke to a remarkable redoux -- a humid, balmy simulacrum of Spring, wedged into a crevice of Winter.   And so, though my son and (since the bereavement) principal hike-mate  was still tarrying up in New Jersey (like Odysseus on Ogygia,  entranced by Calypso), I set out for the lake, alone save for ever-sensed presence of my late beloved bride, ethereally by my side.  (For those of you with a Classical background, this will recall the eidolon of Helen of Troy, in Euripedes.)

The lake, only recently frozen over, was now quite free of ice. A flock of diving-ducks made sport with this, plying their dippy trade; and a few turtles had seemingly emerged from whatever mudhole they hide in to escape the winter’s wrath, and were sunning themselves on a log.  Solitary joggers  in T-shirts and shorts  passed by.

On the far side of the lake, a brisk wind had sprung up, and this fickle, now from in front and now behind.  I sat down on a sunlit bench, half-hoping the Muse might whisper, but in the event  I mostly joined the turtles in a dozy pleasure of motionless, wordless sunbathing.  Such exposure increasingly abundant sun is prophylactic against Seasonal Affective Disorder, a kind of dermal dialysis.

[-- 21 Dec 2018, officially the first day of Winter.]

What -- you call this *cold* ?!?

Media hysteria:

  Winter storm threatens East Coast, bringing temps colder than Mars

Frozen iguanas falling from trees during cold snap in Florida

  États-Unis : il fait si froid que les requins meurent congelés

You wanna know cold?  I’ll tell you co-ld …

On Saturn, where we penguins originated before planting an Earth-colony at Antarctica, it grows so cold, the oxygen freezes right out of the air…

You got to chip off a chunk with a chisel and chew it, even to breathe…

~

Want further truth-defying tales?  Try these:

Reports from Rootabaga Country

Perfect days

to catch some rays

.

Hibernation Monostich

Mr Bear,   deathly alive in his cave,

   with no alarm-clock but the distant Spring.

Salute the Solstice

The Brightening, though Frozen  Solstice

This time each year,  the sun doth wend,

signaling days-dying’s end.

Henceforth  throughout  the grateful lands

our daily dose of light  expands.

Thus do we, cheered  by this faint grace,

take heart for Winter’s chill embrace.

And though the brisk winds  scourge the earth,

look forward to  our Spring rebirth.

Christi dedico in nomine;
Gratias agimus, Domine.

Angst in January

The sun obscured through winter silver,

quite as you’d see it from Saturn, in all seasons:

distant;  impotent;   appalled.

After a Night of Sleet

O no    the Icemonster   ate up all the squirrels !

Now the world is sad !!

Chill Wind

[With the sudden return  of chill and wintry weather,  we post this;

 for Spring has not yet won her definitive victory.]

In winter time when the north winds blow

     and the winter winds  blow keenly

Two ravens sat amidst the snow

     and the winter winds  blow cold

"In yonder cottage lives a lad"

     and the winter winds  blow keenly

"He's dying of the love he had"

and the winter winds  blow cold

Then it's Ho for the western ocean,

and Ho  for rovers bold

God grant us space and peace and place

for the winter wind blows cold

'Tis winter and the winds blow hard

and the winter winds  blow keenly

Two ravens sat without the yard

     and the winter winds  blow cold

"He pines and moans  upon the thorn"

and the winter winds  blow keenly

"And sighs for the maid who did him scorn"

     and the winter winds  blow cold

Then it's Ho for the western ocean,

and Ho  for rovers bold

God grant us space and peace and place

for the winter wind blows cold

When embers died within the grate

and the winter winds  blow keenly

two ravens sat upon the gate

     and the winter winds  blow cold

"In all the lands that Christ doth rule

and the winter winds  blow keenly

was there e'er a maiden half so cruel?"

     and the winter winds  blow cold

Then it's Ho for the western ocean,

and Ho  for rovers bold

God grant us space and peace and place

for the winter wind blows cold

Two ravens lingered, black as night

     and the winter winds  blow keenly

and all amid the snow so white.

     and the winter winds  blow cold

"In all the lands where the wind blows loud"

     and the winter winds  blow keenly

"there never was  a maid so proud."

     and the winter winds  blow cold

Then it's Ho for the western ocean,

and Ho  for rovers bold

God grant us space and peace and place

for the winter wind blows cold

The first bird to the second said

and the winter winds  blow keenly

"What may we do to rest his head?"

     and the winter winds  blow cold

The second to the first intones

and the winter winds  blow keenly

"What might we try, t' avenge his bones?"

     and the winter winds  blow cold

Then it's Ho for the western ocean,

and Ho  for rovers bold

God grant us space and peace and place

for the winter wind blows cold

"We'll pluck her eyes out from her head

and the winter winds  blow keenly

and shade her grave when she lies dead."

     and the winter winds  blow cold

"We'll soothe him with a mournful sound

     and the winter winds  blow keenly

and croak a dirge when she's in the ground."

     and the winter winds  blow cold

Then it's Ho for the western ocean,

and Ho  for rovers bold

God grant us space and peace and place

for the winter wind blows cold

The Wonders of Nature

“How each unique frail flake

of coldest snow  most white,

no one another’s like --“

"(I am uniquely meee ...)"

--  The hell you say.

Right now there must be a billion of them out there,

covering everything like a slab of sludge.

Seen one, you seen them all.

-- Susie, hand me the shovel.

Blizzard in Mid-Winter

falling and flailing

bright flakes of ice-light

sabre the air.

the wind-whip  whistles

in leaf-lorn twigs.

beasts flee,  slink or scamper,

seeking any hovel or hole.

side-slanting downstreams  as the wind shifts;

upgusting snowblows  from the snow-drifts.

the slate-gray day

darkens with descent of dusk;

all bleaches to a blur --

blate white, bleak black.

[Note:  To appreciate the structure of this poem,
you need to know  that it is stress-timed,
not syllable-timed --
in accordance with the tastes
of our Saxon ancestors. ]

They Stand Revealed

All the leaves now     

fallen, fallen,

the squirrel-huts stand plain which had been hidden,

high atop the towering tulip trees.

They look woefully inadequate shielding from winter winds,

being themselves now all unshielded.

~

The past few days have been balmy;

and yet the hint of winter

in the skies with their wincing shrinking light

has drawn the raccoon  once again  out of the woods.

We seldom see him;  but the trash-can, toppled on its side with the lid pried,

the chicken bones denuded of their remnant juicy delicacies,

tell the tale.

Welcome back, you furry forager;

time to switch to the more cumbrous container with a lockable top.

~

All at a sudden-once  / seen

stark, behind spare bare branches,

a wisp of cirrus

slow       ly       slips      .   .    .

revealing  in its extended irregular outlines

indecipherable intricacies  of wind and temperature  in the high sky,

like a Gram-stain unveiling   invisible infusoria.

Tales of Winter, in Rootabaga Country

One winter back then, it got so cold, all the snowmen froze to death;  and the moon  stuck to the sky.

‘Nother time, Time froze, so it looked like we’d have winter forever.

But then the Blind Man had a good idea.  He broke out the firewater, and soon all was well.

There’s another story somewhere but I can’t tell it cos I can’t thaw it.

So those are the tales they tell, out in Rootabaga Country.

Folks around here  believes them all;  so I reckon they must be true.

~

[Update, even deeper into winter.  February the Frigid.]

I finally arrive at work, after trudging in from a far parking-lot.   I tell my podmates (whose upturned faces observe what must look like an entering yeti):  “Ask me if it’s cold.”

Exchanged glances.  Then, dutifully, someone recites:  “Is it cold?”

Momentarily I act nonplussed, as though the question made no sense.  “Is it -- ‘cold’?  Relative to what?  It isn’t cold relative to Pluto;  this would be like a summer’s day to them.  On Pluto, the oxygen is in a solid state, like peanut brittle;  to breathe, you have to break off a chunk and chew.”

Everyone allowed as how we’re lucky it isn’t that cold right here right now.

Wintry monostich

~

~ ~

the chill    brisk    wind

slllllllLIces   like a knife

~ ~

~

Snow upon (snow upon (snow …) …)

When night falls, at story-time, these are the tales they tell.

They tell of the great snowfall -- The Big One – O what a time it was!

They tell it at length, and in loving detail.

And as each one succumbs to the tug of the tale, sinking into snowdrifts of sleep,

their bunkmates in the burrow   take up the thread…

"It snowed and it snowed and it snowed and it snowed"

            "and it snowed and it snowed and it snowed and it"

                        "snowed and it"           

                                    "snowed and"  "it snowed"           

                                                "and it"

                                    "snowedandit"    "snowedandit"

snowedanditsnowedanditsnowedanditsnowed…

              snowed

                        snowed

                                                snowed

snowed

            snowed

                        snowed

                                    snowed

                                                                        . . . . . . . .

[Scholiast to scholars:

The Urtext for this is “Piglet Entirely Surrounded by Water”.]