Soft handfuls of the fair white snow

 

Photo by Kimberly Higgins Crawford     Snow at Skaneateles  New York

Last day of January - and for me, this has been a very long January.   First real snowstorm, too.

Here's a poem by Dante Gabriel Rosetti, one that hearkens back to the Middle Ages:

January -

by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

 

For January I give you vests of skins,

And mighty fires in hall, and torches lit;

Chambers and happy beds with all things fit;

Smooth silken sheets, rough furry counterpanes;

And sweetmeats baked; and one that deftly spins

Warm arras; and Douay cloth, and store of it;

And on this merry manner still to twit

The wind, when most his mastery the wind wins.

Or issuing forth at seasons in the day,

Ye'll fling soft handfuls of the fair white snow

Among the damsels standing round, in play:

And when you all are tired and all aglow,

Indoors again the court shall hold its sway,

And the free Fellowship continue so.

Photo by Teresa Cero Thacker      Snow on red berries  Baltimore MD

Saturday of the forty-seventh week of the COVID Quarantine

 It's one of those times when I feel that I am talking into a void... not even talking well to myself.

We are expecting "significant snow" starting tomorrow and into the beginning of the week. I am ready for it!

Carolina Wren    photo by Robyn Allen

Here is a poem by Dylan Thomas, in the beginning of the first year of World War 1:

"In the sniffed and poured snow on the tip of the tongue of the year
That clouts the spittle like bubbles with broken rooms,
An enamoured man alone by the twigs of his eyes, two fires,
Camped in the drug-white shower of nerves and food,
Savours the lick of the times through a deadly wood of hair
In a wind that plucked a goose,
Nor ever, as the wild tongue breaks its tombs,
Rounds to look at the red, wagged root."

-  Dylan Thomas, January, 1939

Snowy Owl   Cape May January 2021

 

I listen going on

 

photo by Julie Zickefoose

Here's a poem by Richard Wilbur, one of my favorite poets:

Sirens

I never knew the road

From which the whole earth didn't call away,

With wild birds rounding the hill crowns,

Haling out of the heart an old dismay,

Or the shore somewhere pounding its slow code,

Or low-lighted towns

Seeming to tell me, stay.

Lands I have never seen

And shall not see, loves I will not forget

All I have missed, or slighted, or foregone

Call to me now. And weaken me. And yet

I would not walk a road without a scene.

I listen going on,

The richer for regret.

A very good day

 

Amanda Gorman's poem was breathtaking,  and here's another wonderful poem for this momentous occasion by Jericho Brown:

Inauguration

We were told that it is dangerous to touch
And yet we journeyed here, where what we believe
Meets what must be done. You want to see, in spite
Of my mask, my face. We imagine, in time

Of disease, our grandmothers
Whole. We imagine an impossible
America and call one another
A fool for doing so. Grown up from the ground,

Thrown out of the sea, fallen from the sky,
No matter how we’ve come, we’ve come a mighty
Long way. If I touch any of you, if I
Shake one hand, I am nearer another

Beginning. Can’t you feel it? The trouble
With me is I’m just like you. I don’t want
To be hopeful if it means I’ve got to be
Naïve. I’ve bent so low in my hunger,

My hair’s already been in the soup,
And when I speak it’s just beneath my self-
Imposed halo. You’ll forgive me if you can
Forgive yourself. I forgive you as you build

A museum of weapons we soon visit
Just to see what we once were. I forgive us
Our debts. We were told to wake up grateful,
So we try to fall asleep that way. Where, then,

Shall we put our pains when we want rest?
I don’t carry a knife, but I understand
The desperation of those who do,
Which is why I am recounting the facts

As calmly as I can. The year is new,
And we mean to use our imaginations.
One of us wants to raise George Stinney
From the dead. One of us wants a small vial

Of the sweat left on Sylvia Rivera’s
Headband. Some want to be the music made
Magical by Bill Withers’s stutter.
Others come with maps and magnifying

Glasses and graphite pencils to find
Locations beside the mind where we are not
Patrolled or surveilled or corralled or chained.
I, myself, have come to reclaim the teeth

In George Washington’s mouth and plant them
In the backyards of big houses that are not
In my name. My cousins want to share
A single bale of the cotton our mothers

Picked as children. I would love to live
In a country that lets me grow old.
I long. I long for that. We are otherwise
Easily satisfied. Where do we get

Tangerines for cheap? Can we make it
There on the Metro? How hot is the fire
Fairy blister of chocolate chipotle sauce,
And will you judge me if I taste it? But now,

We’ve put our hunger down for the time it takes
To come and reconcile ourselves to the land
Because it is holy, to the water
Because it swallowed our ancestors,

To the air because we are dumb enough
To decide on something as difficult
As love. If no one’s punishment leads to
My salvation, then accountability

Is what waits. It moves citizens, mends nations.
That’s for us to prove. That’s the deed to witness.
That’s the single item on the agenda
Read in Braille or by eye, ink drying like blood

Spilled this American hour of our lives.

---

Jericho Brown is a poet and the director of the creative-writing program at Emory University. He has written three collections of poetry, including “The Tradition,” which won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and was published by Copper Canyon Press.

We were told that it is dangerous to touch
And yet we journeyed here, where what we believe
Meets what must be done. You want to see, in spite
Of my mask, my face. We imagine, in time

Of disease, our grandmothers
Whole. We imagine an impossible
America and call one another
A fool for doing so. Grown up from the ground,

Thrown out of the sea, fallen from the sky,
No matter how we’ve come, we’ve come a mighty
Long way. If I touch any of you, if I
Shake one hand, I am nearer another

Beginning. Can’t you feel it? The trouble
With me is I’m just like you. I don’t want
To be hopeful if it means I’ve got to be
Naïve. I’ve bent so low in my hunger,

My hair’s already been in the soup,
And when I speak it’s just beneath my self-
Imposed halo. You’ll forgive me if you can
Forgive yourself. I forgive you as you build

A museum of weapons we soon visit
Just to see what we once were. I forgive us
Our debts. We were told to wake up grateful,
So we try to fall asleep that way. Where, then,

Shall we put our pains when we want rest?
I don’t carry a knife, but I understand
The desperation of those who do,
Which is why I am recounting the facts

As calmly as I can. The year is new,
And we mean to use our imaginations.
One of us wants to raise George Stinney
From the dead. One of us wants a small vial

Of the sweat left on Sylvia Rivera’s
Headband. Some want to be the music made
Magical by Bill Withers’s stutter.
Others come with maps and magnifying

Glasses and graphite pencils to find
Locations beside the mind where we are not
Patrolled or surveilled or corralled or chained.
I, myself, have come to reclaim the teeth

In George Washington’s mouth and plant them
In the backyards of big houses that are not
In my name. My cousins want to share
A single bale of the cotton our mothers

Picked as children. I would love to live
In a country that lets me grow old.
I long. I long for that. We are otherwise
Easily satisfied. Where do we get

Tangerines for cheap? Can we make it
There on the Metro? How hot is the fire
Fairy blister of chocolate chipotle sauce,
And will you judge me if I taste it? But now,

We’ve put our hunger down for the time it takes
To come and reconcile ourselves to the land
Because it is holy, to the water
Because it swallowed our ancestors,

To the air because we are dumb enough
To decide on something as difficult
As love. If no one’s punishment leads to
My salvation, then accountability

Is what waits. It moves citizens, mends nations.
That’s for us to prove. That’s the deed to witness.
That’s the single item on the agenda
Read in Braille or by eye, ink drying like blood

Spilled this American hour of our lives.

---

Jericho Brown is a poet and the director of the creative-writing program at Emory University. He has written three collections of poetry, including “The Tradition,” which won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry and was published by Copper Canyon Press.

• 
  
  

Love is but the song we sing

 

Prayer service for victims of COVID  this evening on the National Mall.  

The most hopeful I have felt in a while.

One of my Facebook friends posted the lyrics to a song I've loved a long time but had forgotten about:

Get Together

The Youngbloods

Love is but a song we sing
Fear's the way we die
You can make the mountains ring
Or make the angels cry
Though the bird is on the wing
And you may not know why

Come on, people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

Some may come and some may go
He will surely pass
When the one that left us here
Returns for us at last
We are but a moment's sunlight
Fading in the grass

Come on, people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

Come on, people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

Come on, people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

If you hear the song I sing
You will understand, listen
You hold the key to love and fear
All in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both
It's there at your command

Come on, people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

Come on, people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

I said come on, people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now
Right now
Right now

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Jesse Colin Young

Get Together lyrics © Bernard's Other Music, Tenyor Music, Publishing Company Ten Ab, Pigfoot Music, Irving Music Inc.

The world is always turning toward the morning

 

This is a song by Gordon Bok that I have loved for many years.  On this feast day of Martin Luther King Jr., it seems appropriate to me:

Turning Toward the Morning

Gordon Bok

When the deer has bedded down
And the bear has gone to ground
And the northern goose has wandered off
To warmer bay and sound
It's so easy in the cold to feel
The darkness of the year
And the heart is growing lonely for the morning

Oh, my Joanie, don't you know
That the stars are swingin' slow
And the seas are rollin' easy
As they did so long ago
If i had a thing to give you
I would tell you one more time
That the world is always turning toward the morning

When October's growin' thin
And November's comin' home
You'll be thinking of the seasons
And the sad things that you've seen
And you hear that old wind walkin'
Hear him singin' high and thin
You could swear he's out there singin' of your sorrow

Oh, my Joanie, don't you know
That the stars are swingin' slow
And the seas are rollin' easy
As they did so long ago
If i had a thing to give you
I would tell you one more time
That the world is always turning toward the morning

So the darkness falls around you
And you hear the north wind blow
And you hear him call your name out
As he walks the bitter snow
That old wind don't mean you trouble,
He don't care or even know
He's just walkin' down the darkness toward the morning

Oh, my Joanie, don't you know
That the stars are swingin' slow
And the seas are rollin' easy
As they did so long ago
If I had a thing to give you
I would tell you one more time
That the world is always turning toward the morning

It's a pity we don't know
What the little flowers know
They can't face the cold November
They can't take the bitter snow
They put their glories all behind them
Bow their heads and let it go
But you know they'll be there shining in the morning

Oh, my Joanie, don't you know
That the stars are swingin' slow
And the seas are rollin' easy
As they did so long ago
If i had a thing to give you
I would tell you one more time
That the world is always turning toward the morning

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Gordon Bok

So far, so good

 

art by Albert Breedow

A blessedly quiet January 17;  our nation's Capitol is studded with National Guard, who blessedly have no rioters to fight.  Let's hope it continues.

Meanwhile, here's a poem by Victoria Kennefick:

January

by Victoria Kennefick

I have begun the purge.
Month of hunger,
raindrops fall
from window sills, ice
slithers in puddles,
the smoky breath of animals
greets the air. Morning’s back
already broken, veins
obvious on everything.
Emptying myself
of all things ripe
and wanton, I am winter grass.
Observe me survive
as earth’s shoulder blades
that jut, cut up the sky
that pushes down on all of us
as if it wants to die.
See, I am transparent
as sunrise.
Starving, I count
my bones as valuable.

 

Winter tree with birds     art by Lucy Grossmith

Further than Guess could gallop

 

photo by Debbie De Frank-Jordan

Here's a mind-bending poem by Emily Dickinson.  I only recently encountered this one, thanks to my poet friend April Lindner:

Under the Light, yet under

Under the Light, yet under,

Under the Grass and the Dirt,

Under the Beetle’s Cellar

Under the Clover’s Root,

Further than Arm could stretch

Were it Giant long,

Further than Sunshine could

Were the Day Year long,

Over the Light, yet over,

Over the Arc of the Bird —

Over the Comet’s chimney —

Over the Cubit’s Head,

Further than Guess can gallop

Further than Riddle ride —

Oh for a Disc to the Distance

Between Ourselves and the Dead!

—Emily Dickinson

Wren and Mouse Molly Brett

Don't forget about COVID 19

 It's a beautiful Friday morning in Frederick... something lovely to enjoy in the midst of crisis

January 15 morning in Frederick Maryland     photo by Patricia Kreke

The headlines that grab my attention this morning ( and the last two days) are the ones about the domestic terrorist  attack on our Capitol.  Trump's second impeachment , the deployment of thousands of National Guard troops in Washington DC, and the continuing series of arrests can't help but capture my attention.

However, the COVID19 invasion continues apace.  Medical sources say that 100,000 Americans will die of COVID in the next three weeks, due to the unfolding consequences of holiday travel.

Just let that sink in.

Trump Impeached Again

 Headline from the Washington Post:

Trump is isolated and angry at aides for failing to defend him as he is impeached again

I feel that I am living through some significant American history.  

Our citizenry is still very divided, but I am praying that those who have believed Trump's biggest lie ( that the election was stolen from him)  will come to realize that they were duped by an expert.

Who knows what will happen between now and January 20, when he leaves office?  

I love this quote from Lincoln:

My fellow Americans

 

Photo from this morning: National Guard troops in Capitol hallway 

Headlines from this morning:

YouTube ban: Google blocks new uploads to Donald Trump's channel after Capitol riots, citing potential for violence

House passes measure calling on Pence to invoke 25th Amendment and remove Trump from office

from Axios:

Top Republicans want Trump done — forevermore

photos from the insurrection this past Wednesday:

and

my fellow Americans.

The things we wished were metaphor were not

 Crisp January morning

Photo by Douglas Claytor

Here's a poem by Jeff Hardin:

A SINGULAR EVENT    by Jeff Hardin

A river is nearing flood stage, the town mostly

sleeping except for a few ardent souls. Winter

bears in from the west, though it is everywhere

the mind can imagine. A boy stands on a bridge.

Scenes like this one come and go often. An end

is reached, a point at which no other accompanies.

Our explanations are approximations and leave out

more than they include. We hold them all the more

fiercely. The things we wish were metaphor are not,

and the things we think are ordinary often become

haunting. Gauguin wrote in repetitive fragments,

meandering outside the reach of reason or linearity.

The line from one event to all the selves that follow

contains at least a thousand Ninevahs. The boy

will not learn history’s missteps, theology’s errors,

the effect of the human gaze on the object it perceives,

what happens to DNA when notes of Bach are played.

Soon the town will wake to news, what it knows,

what it doesn’t, what remains of what was never

there to begin with. Is there a single point of view?

The next thing that happens is never not happening.

Meaning rises, deepens, surrounds, fills. It carries on.

Crow in Trees and Snow       Brueghel

Everybody knows the plague is coming

 

Leonard Cohen, poet and songwriter, was surely a prophet.  So many of his songs prophesied what's happening now.   So many of the lyrics of "Everybody Knows," for example:

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died
Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long-stem rose
Everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

And everybody knows that it's now or never
Everybody knows that it's me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah, when you've done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows

And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Leonard Cohen / Sharon Robinson