Big, round music

 

No snow yet here, but I must post this poem from Mary Oliver:

White-Eyes

BY MARY OLIVER

In winter

    all the singing is in

         the tops of the trees

             where the wind-bird

 

with its white eyes

    shoves and pushes

         among the branches.

             Like any of us

 

he wants to go to sleep,

    but he's restless—

         he has an idea,

             and slowly it unfolds

 

from under his beating wings

    as long as he stays awake.

         But his big, round music, after all,

             is too breathy to last.

 

So, it's over.

    In the pine-crown

         he makes his nest,

             he's done all he can.

 

I don't know the name of this bird,

    I only imagine his glittering beak

         tucked in a white wing

             while the clouds—

 

which he has summoned

    from the north—

         which he has taught

             to be mild, and silent—

 

thicken, and begin to fall

    into the world below

         like stars, or the feathers

               of some unimaginable bird

 

that loves us,

    that is asleep now, and silent—

         that has turned itself

             into snow.

 

Source: Poetry (Poetry Foundation, 2002)

 

In the Arms of Grace      Art by Wendy Andrew

and some words from Yule Lore:

 

"Yule, is when the dark half of the year relinquishes to the light half.   Starting the next morning at sunrise, the sun climbs just a little higher and stays a little longer in the sky each day.  Known as Solstice Night, or the longest night of the year, much celebration was to be had as the ancestors awaited the rebirth of the Oak King, the Sun King, the Giver of Life that warmed the frozen Earth and made her to bear forth from seeds protected through the fall and winter in her womb.  Bonfires were lit in the fields, and crops and trees were "wassailed" with toasts of spiced cider."

-   Yule Lore