Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Winter

 

“In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.”— Albert Camus

SOURCE

“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.”— Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

      Midweek Motif ~ Winter

Winter is not that much cold, bleak and depressing where I live. It rather sends off a vibe of joy and color. It’s a time for comfort and good food. Winter is sunny, bright with a nip in the air. Everyone is happy as the sweltering heat is no more.

It would be perfect if such winter story was true for all. For the poor and homeless winter is a more or less grim struggle as elsewhere.

For this week write a winter poem.

Sharing a few poems now:

Horses

by Pablo Neruda

From the window I saw the horses.

I was in Berlin, in winter. The light
had no light, the sky had no heaven.

The air was white like wet bread.

And from my window a vacant arena,
bitten by the teeth of winter.

Suddenly driven out by a man,
ten horses surged through the mist.

Like waves of fire, they flared forward
and to my eyes filled the whole world,
empty till then. Perfect, ablaze,
they were like ten gods with pure white hoofs,
with manes like a dream of salt.

Their rumps were worlds and oranges.

Their color was honey, amber, fire.

Their necks were towers
cut from the stone of pride,
and behind their transparent eyes
energy raged, like a prisoner.

There, in silence, at mid-day,
in that dirty, disordered winter,
those intense horses were the blood
the rhythm, the inciting treasure of life.

I looked. I looked and was reborn:
for there, unknowing, was the fountain,
the dance of gold, heaven
and the fire that lives in beauty.

I have forgotten that dark Berlin winter.

I will not forget the light of the horses.

The Snow Man

by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Those Winter Sundays

by Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he’d call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love’s austere and lonely offices?

Not Only the Eskimos

by Lisel Mueller

Not only the Eskimos

 We have only one noun

 but as many different kinds:

                                         

 the grainy snow of the Puritans

 and snow of soft, fat flakes,

 guerrilla snow, which comes in the night

 and changes the world by morning,

 rabbinical snow, a permanent skullcap

 on the highest mountains,

 snow that blows in like the Lone Ranger,

 riding hard from out of the West,

 surreal snow in the Dakotas,

 when you can't find your house, your street,

 though you are not in a dream

 or a science-fiction movie,

 snow that tastes good to the sun

 when it licks black tree limbs,

 leaving us only one white stripe,

 a replica of a skunk,

 unbelievable snows:

 the blizzard that strikes on the tenth of April,

 the false snow before Indian summer,

 the Big Snow on Mozart's birthday,

 when Chicago became the Elysian Fields

 and strangers spoke to each other,

 paper snow, cut and taped,

 to the inside of grade-school windows,

 in an old tale, the snow

 that covers a nest of strawberries,

 small hearts, ripe and sweet,

 the special snow that goes with Christmas,

 whether it falls or not,

 the Russian snow we remember

 along with the warmth and smell of furs,

 though we have never traveled

 to Russia or worn furs,

 Villon's snows of yesteryear,

 lost with ladies gone out like matches,

 the snow in Joyce's "The Dead,"

 the silent, secret snow

 in a story by Conrad Aiken,

 which is the snow of first love,

 the snowfall between the child

 and the spacewoman on TV,

 snow as idea of whiteness,

 as in snowdrop, snow goose, snowball bush,

 the snow that puts stars in your hair,

 and your hair, which has turned to snow,

 the snow Elinor Wylie walked in

 in velvet shoes,

 the snow before her footprints

 and the snow after,

 the snow in the back of our heads,

 whiter than white, which has to do

 with childhood again each year.

Please share your new poem using Mr. Linky below and visit others in the spirit of the community—

(Next week Susan’s Midweek Motif will be ~ Awakening)