Year's End

Maurice Langaskens, "A Village Covered in Snow"

Year’s End

Now winter downs the dying of the year,
And night is all a settlement of snow;
From the soft street the rooms of houses show
A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere,
Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin
And still allows some stirring down within.

I’ve known the wind by water banks to shake
The late leaves down, which frozen where they fell
And held in ice as dancers in a spell
Fluttered all winter long into a lake;
Graved on the dark in gestures of descent,
They seemed their own most perfect monument.

There was perfection in the death of ferns
Which laid their fragile cheeks against the stone
A million years. Great mammoths overthrown
Composedly have made their long sojourns,
Like palaces of patience, in the gray
And changeless lands of ice. And at Pompeii

The little dog lay curled and did not rise
But slept the deeper as the ashes rose
And found the people incomplete, and froze
The random hands, the loose unready eyes
Of men expecting yet another sun
To do the shapely thing they had not done.

These sudden ends of time must give us pause.
We fray into the future, rarely wrought
Save in the tapestries of afterthought.
More time, more time. Barrages of applause
Come muffled from a buried radio.
The New-year bells are wrangling with the snow.

Richard Wilbur 

This sense of not having quite finished all the things we needed to do, of not being quite prepared to face the next thing, of the thing being set before we were finished - it's all too familiar. More time! More time! 


 

Lost in Winter

Lin Shun-Shiung

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lost in Winter

No earth, no sky, can be discerned at all,
Only these ceaseless snowflakes: still they fall.

Hashin

Sometimes less is more. Sometimes a moment is enough to appreciate.

 

This December Day

Andrei Tutunov

This December Day

Here in this room, this December day, 
Listening to the year die out on the warfields
And in the voices of children
Who laugh in the indecisive light
At the throes that but rehearse their own
I take the mystery of giving in my hands
And pass it on to you,

I give thanks 
To the giver of images,
The reticent God who goes about his work
Determined to hold on to nothing. 
Embarrassed at the prospect of possession
He distributes leaves to the wind
And lets them pitch and leap like boys capering out of their skin.
Pictures are thrown behind hedges,
Poems skitter backwards over cliffs,
There is a loaf of bread on Derek's threshold
And we will never know who put it there.

For such things
And bearing in mind
The midnight hurt, the shot bride,
The famine in the heart,
The demented soldier, the terrified cities
Rising out of their own rubble,

I give thanks.

I listen to the sound of doors
Opening and closing in the street.
They are like the heartbeats of this creator
Who gives everything away.

I do not understand
Such constant evacuation of the heart,
Such striving toward emptiness,
Thinking, however, of the intrepid skeleton,
There feared definition,
I grasp a little of the giving
And hold it close as my own flesh,

It is this little
That I give to you,
And now I want to walk out and witness
The shadow of some ungraspable sweetness
Passing over the measureless squalor of man
Like a child's hand over my own face
Or the exodus of swallows across the land

And I know it does not matter 
That I do not understand.

Brendan Kennelly

This poem - it encompasses so much.  Kennelly puts to words that conflicting sense I have of knowing that God is working, and being astounded by His nature and generosity and love, and feeling so grateful that I can just open my hands to receive. Not without "bearing in mind", as he says, the ugliness and suffering of everyday life. That part I appreciate so much. He gives thanks. How else can we live? Both are true - God's generosity and the fact of pain. This is certainly my experience of life. So that line "And now I want to walk out and witness/The shadow of some ungraspable sweetness/Passing over the measureless squalor of man/Like a child's hand over my own face/Or the exodus of swallows across the land" rings all my bells. I want that too. I want to walk out today and witness His working, receive His gifts, and give thanks - even though I don't understand. 

 

Descent

N.C. Wyeth

Descent

They sought to soar into the skies

Those classic gods of high renown

For lofty pride aspires to rise

But you came down.

You dropped down from the mountains sheer

Forsook the eagle for the dove

The other Gods demanded fear

But you gave love

Where chiselled marble seemed to freeze

Their abstract and perfected form

Compassion brought you to your knees

Your blood was warm

They called for blood in sacrifice

Their victims on an altar bled

When no one else could pay the price

You died instead

They towered above our mortal plain,

Dismissed this restless flesh with scorn,

Aloof from birth and death and pain,

But you were born.

Born to these burdens, borne by all

Born with us all ‘astride the grave’

Weak, to be with us when we fall,

And strong to save.

Malcolm Guite

Christmas Time

Anton Pieck

Christmas Time

Glad Christmas comes, and every hearth
    Makes room to give him welcome now,
E'en want will dry its tears in mirth,
    And crown him with a holly bough;
Though tramping 'neath a winter sky,
    O'er snowy paths and rimy stiles,
The housewife sets her spinning by
    To bid him welcome with her smiles.

Each house is swept the day before,
    And windows stuck with evergreens,
The snow is besom'd from the door,
    And comfort the crowns the cottage scenes.
Gilt holly, with its thorny pricks,
    And yew and box, with berries small,
These deck the unused candlesticks,
    And pictures hanging by the wall.

Neighbors resume their annual cheer,
    Wishing, with smiles and spirits high,
Glad Christmas and a happy year
    To every morning passer-by;
Milkmaids their Christmas journeys go,
    Accompanied with favour'd swain;
And children pace the crumpling snow,
    To taste their granny's cake again.

The shepherd, now no more afraid,
    Since custom doth the chance bestow,
Starts up to kiss the giggling maid
    Beneath the branch of mistletoe
That 'neath each cottage beam is seen,
    With pearl-like berries shining gay;
The shadow still of what hath been,
    Which fashion yearly fades away.

The singing waits — a merry throng,
    At early morn, with simple skill,
Yet imitate the angel's song
    And chaunt their Christmas ditty still;
And, 'mid the storm that dies and swells
    By fits, in hummings softly steals
The music of the village bells,
    Ringing around their merry peals.

When this is past, a merry crew,
    Bedecked in masks and ribbons gay,
The Morris Dance, their sports renew,
    And act their winter evening play.
The clown turned king, for penny praise,
    Storms with the actor's strut and swell,
And harlequin, a laugh to raise,
    Wears his hunch-back and tinkling bell.

And oft for pence and spicy ale,
    With winter nosegays pinned before,
The wassail-singer tells her tale,
    And drawls her Christmas carols o'er.
While 'prentice boy, with ruddy face,
    And rime-bepowdered dancing locks,
From door to door, with happy face,
    Runs round to claim his "Christmas-box."

The block upon the fire is put,
    To sanction custom's old desires,
And many a fagot's bands are cut
    For the old farmer's Christmas fires;
Where loud-tongued gladness joins the throng,
    And Winter meets the warmth of May,
Till, feeling soon the heat too strong,
    He rubs his shins and draws away.

While snows the window-panes bedim,
    The fire curls up a sunny charm,
Where, creaming o'er the pitcher's rim,
    The flowering ale is set to warm.
Mirth full of joy as summer bees
    Sits there its pleasures to impart,
And children, 'tween their parents' knees,
    Sing scraps of carols off by heart.

And some, to view the winter weathers,
    Climb up the window seat with glee,
Likening the snow to falling feathers,
    In fancy's infant ecstacy;
Laughing, with superstitious love,
    O'er visions wild that youth supplies,
Of people pulling geese above,
    And keeping Christmas in the skies.

As though the homestead trees were drest,
    In lieu of snow, with dancing leaves,
As though the sun-dried martin's nest,
    Instead of ic'cles hung the eves;
The children hail the happy day —
    As if the snow were April's grass,
And pleased, as 'neath the warmth of May,
    Sport o'er the water froze to glass.

Thou day of happy sound and mirth,
    That long with childish memory stays,
How blest around the cottage hearth,
    I met thee in my younger days,
Harping, with rapture's dreaming joys,
    On presents which thy coming found,
The welcome sight of little toys,
    The Christmas gift of cousins round.

About the glowing hearth at night,
    The harmless laugh and winter tale
Go round; while parting friends delight
    To toast each other o'er their ale.
The cotter oft with quiet zeal
    Will, musing, o'er his bible lean;
While, in the dark the lovers steal,
    To kiss and toy behind the screen.

Old customs! Oh! I love the sound,
    However simple they may be;
Whate'er with time hath sanction found,
    Is welcome, and is dear to me,
Pride grows above simplicity,
    And spurns them from her haughty mind;
And soon the poet's song will be
    The only refuge they can find.

John Clare

Christmas Eve

Viggo Johansen

Christmas Eve

Put out the lights now!
Look at the Tree, the rough tree dazzled
In oriole plumes of flame,
Tinselled with twinkling frost fire, tasselled
With stars and moons - the same
That yesterday hid in the spinney and had no fame
Till we put out the lights now.

Hard are the nights now:
The fields at moonrise turn to agate,
Shadows are cold as jet;    
In dyke and furrow, in copse and faggot
The frost's tooth is set;
And stars are the sparks whirled out by the north wind's fret
On the flinty nights now.

So feast your eyes now:
On mimic star and moon-cold bauble;
Worlds may wither unseen,
But the Christmas Tree is a tree of fable,
A phoenix in evergreen,
And the world cannot change or chill what its mysteries mean
To your hearts and eyes now.

The vision dies now
Candle by candle: the tree that embraced it
Returns to its own kind,
To be earthed again and weather as best it
May the frost and the wind.
Children, it too had its hour - you will not mind
If it lives or dies now.

C. Day-Lewis       

this (let's remember) day

Samantha Keely Smith, "Surfacing"

this (let's remember) day died again and
again; whose golden,crimson dooms conceive

an oceaning abyss of orange dream

larger than sky times earth; a flame beyond
soul immemorial forevering am --
and as collapsing that grey mind by wave
doom disappeared,out of perhaps (who knows?)

eternity floated a blossoming


e.e. cummings

I sometimes try to puzzle cummings poems out. But most of the time I see images and a sense of something for which the poem is the closest thing to naming. Something in me says "Yes! That's it!" and scrambles to hold on to the beauty that slips out of my mind so quickly. I have to read the poem over and over to grasp it again. This one is a vivid contrast between falling, dying, collapsing, grey waves of doom, and the crimson flame of that cyclical (again and again) extinguishing - but look - something else, something eternal (not cyclical, eternal) - a bloom, something new, something born from all this, a flowering, growing, at the beginning of its strength. It seems like hope to me.  

 

The Annunciation

Edward Burne-Jones, "The Annunciation"

The Annunciation

We see so little, stayed on surfaces,

We calculate the outsides of all things,

Preoccupied with our own purposes

We miss the shimmer of the angels’ wings,

They coruscate around us in their joy

A swirl of wheels and eyes and wings unfurled,

They guard the good we purpose to destroy,

A hidden blaze of glory in God’s world.

But on this day a young girl stopped to see

With open eyes and heart. She heard the voice;

The promise of His glory yet to be,

As time stood still for her to make a choice;

Gabriel knelt and not a feather stirred,

The Word himself was waiting on her word.

 Malcolm Guite

"We see so little, stayed on surfaces..." I could spend the rest of my life thinking and expanding on that theme. That "veil", that dark glass -what is behind it? What am I missing by seeing only the surface of life? Is it like scanning the water, observing the reflections, the wave patterns, but never imagining the underwater kingdoms with its plants and mountains and creatures? Are there truly angels in the room with me now as I write? Is the visible thin and brittle compared to the eternal and invisible? When will the veil be ripped in two? When will the dark glass be shattered? What will it be like to experience and know that hidden blaze of glory? How did a young, inexperienced girl ever have the courage to answer God's messenger with, "Be it to me even as thou hast said."? The questions wait their time to be answered.

O Cheese

Jose Escofet

O Cheese

In the pantry the dear dense cheeses, Cheddars and harsh
Lancashires; Gorgonzola with its magnanimous manner;
the clipped speech of Roquefort; and a head of Stilton
that speaks in a sensuous riddling tongue like Druids.
O cheeses of gravity, cheeses of wistfulness, cheeses
that weep continually because they know they will die.
O cheeses of victory, cheeses wise in defeat, cheeses
fat as a cushion, lolling in bed until noon.
Liederkranz ebullient, jumping like a small dog, noisy;
Pont l’Evêque intellectual, and quite well informed; Emmentaler
decent and loyal, a little deaf in the right ear;
and Brie the revealing experience, instantaneous and profound.
O cheeses that dance in the moonlight, cheeses
that mingle with sausages, cheeses of Stonehenge.
O cheeses that are shy, that linger in the doorway,
eyes looking down, cheeses spectacular as fireworks.
Reblochon openly sexual; Caerphilly like pine trees, small
at the timberline; Port du Salut in love; Caprice des Dieux
eloquent, tactful, like a thousand-year-old hostess;
and Dolcelatte, always generous to a fault.
O village of cheeses, I make you this poem of cheeses,
O family of cheeses, living together in pantries,
O cheeses that keep to your own nature, like a lucky couple,
this solitude, this energy, these bodies slowly dying.

Donald Hall

Just because I love cheese. 

The Otter

Martine Emdur

The Otter

When you plunged

The light of Tuscany wavered

And swung through the pool

From top to bottom.

I loved your wet head and smashing crawl,

Your fine swimmer's back and shoulders

Surfacing and surfacing again

This year and every year since.

I sat dry-throated on the warm stones.

You were beyond me.

The mellowed clarities, the grape-deep air

Thinned and disappointed.

Thank God for the slow loadening,

When I hold you now

We are close and deep

As the atmosphere on water.

My two hands are plumbed water.

You are my palpable, lithe

Otter of memory

In the pool of the moment,

Turning to swim on your back,

Each silent, thigh-shaking kick

Re-tilting the light,

Heaving the cool at your neck.

And suddenly you're out,

Back again, intent as ever,

Heavy and frisky in your freshened pelt,

Printing the stones. 

Seamus Heaney 

I live this poem every time I take my son to the pool. He is so happy in the water, watching him jump off the diving board, pick objects up off the bottom of the pool with his teeth, and wave to me underwater - its sheer joy. Seeing him so comfortable and playful in an element that for me is not so easy - he too is beyond me.

The Midnight Skaters

Ronald Lampitt. Skating by Moonlight

The Midnight Skaters

The hop-poles stand in cones,

     The icy pond lurks under,

The pole-tops steeple to the thrones

     Of stars, sound gulfs of wonder;

But not the tallest there, 'tis said,

Could fathom to this pond's black bed.

Then is not death at watch

     Within those secret waters?

What wants he but to catch

     Earth's heedless sons and daughters?

With but a crystal parapet

Between, he has his engines set.

Then on, blood shouts, on, on,

     Twirl, wheel and whip above him,

Dance on this ball-floor thin and wan,

     Use him as though you love him;

Court him, elude him, reel and pass,

And let him hate you through the glass.

Edmund Blunden

I appreciate (in a strange way) this reminder of just how close death is. That the people in this poem are dancing and sweeping and swirling on the thinnest of barriers is so true, so real. Anyone who has lived a little will have felt that breathstopping proximity. In the poem Death's presence is a sinister contrast to the mood above the ice. But the poet is not cowed.  "Use him as though you love him." That line is intriguing. What does "using death" look like? I have to think about that.