Ice

 

 

Robert Strong Woodward

  

Ice

 

Her house is armed to the teeth. Icicles bristle

above my head as I shiver at her door.

One lackadaisical arrow drops.

She's locked in behind winter's 

glassy portcullis.

 

The river's a white road now. As I set foot it groans

as if under a hundred trundling cartwheels.

A crack zigzags across the surface

and I am plunged through the shell

into slush-water.

 

Oat-husks and thistles, a crop of frost in the snowfields.

There is a clear glue hardening on my walls,

clutching my fingertip like birdlime.

From now on nothing will move

but the skidding wind.

 

Matthew Francis

fr. The Green Month: Poems After Daffydd ap Gwilym 

 

He could've said, 

 "It was cold out, and an icicle nearly brained me while I was waiting for Alice to answer the door. The river is frozen although I went through in one spot and got my feet wet." 

He could've made the complaint, 

 "The damp on my walls is turned to ice now, and the wind never stops."

 And be true, accurate, even precise.

 

Instead, he gives us other facets of those same qualities. 

 

Instead, he chooses words which call up a sense of of old chivalry, of besieged castles, he gives us a glimpse of the possible story he (and we with him) is part of, or partaking of. 

He takes us on a walk, but notices that there are more paths than one. The landscape he lives in makes new ways out of itself - the river becomes a way.

And there are harvests to be gathered from what is not usually a source of food.

Weathers, landscapes, objects - all these have different facets when held up to the light, when examined, tasted, tried. All these are transfigured by the eye that sees their possibles, and that gives the possibles words. 

The poet is not "creating", he is revealing, he is showing the realities which are already there.

 

They are all there! 

Here!

 

 

 

 

Signs of Winter

 

                                                                            

Raymond Booth

Signs of Winter

 

The cat runs races with her tail. The dog
Leaps oer the orchard hedge and knarls the grass.
The swine run round and grunt and play with straw,
Snatching out hasty mouthfuls from the stack.
Sudden upon the elmtree tops the crow
Unceremonious visit pays and croaks,
Then swoops away. From mossy barn the owl
Bobs hasty out--wheels round and, scared as soon,
As hastily retires. The ducks grow wild
And from the muddy pond fly up and wheel
A circle round the village and soon, tired,
Plunge in the pond again. The maids in haste
Snatch from the orchard hedge the mizzled clothes
And laughing hurry in to keep them dry.

John Clare

An unusual restlessness, a nervous energy, a twitchy tic. Even the line "Sudden upon the elmtree tops the crow..." springs at you, jumps out of nowhere. Things are hectic, scattered. Change is imminent, and we all are unsettled - humans and animals both.

Ice Wager

Johannes Franciscus Hoppenbrouwers

 The Ice Wager

Snowscape. Shod in tailor’s irons,
Red-hot, with my poundage of weights,
I test the ice of our latest year.
Half the world is out on skates

And the other half watches. Avercamp
Or Brueghel bring the wild duck
Out of the skies, and crowd the river
With yellow leggings, anoraks,

Tobogganing children, and those dogs
More loved around here than people—
The blind or the lonely. Winter trees
Turn gelid in the freezing fog,

The roads are churned to slushy meal
By the horses. Zigzags, figures of eight
Complete the picture. But it is real,
Our wager, so place your bet

With the notary on the bank,
Impartial witness. Hollow rumblings
Out on the ice—the iron quoits,
The games in progress. Will it crumble, 

Our little world, or will it hold?
Upriver from the Netherlands’
Oceangoing space, a man skates in,
A traveller, his clasped hands

Behind his back, his earflaps
Dangling. Has it fallen through,
Our worldview? But he brings no news.
Our mulled wine, our potato schnapps

Are all that concern him. Hurdy-gurdies,
Monkey dances. The Good, the True
Are beyond him, where he is travelling to.
It is down, again, to me and you,

Tonight, when I come off the ice
Which, needless to say, has never cracked
In centuries of changing skies,
To carry out the mandatory acts,

Traditional, for the time of year—
Banquets where the loser pays,
White tablecloths for the ice-floes
Junketing on, in hope and fear.

Harry Clifton 

The Holding Centre: Selected Poems 

 

Has the ice cracked? 

Has our worldview collapsed? 

Will our little world crumble?

I love the questions. Are we ready to make a wager on our answers?

 

 

Winter Storm

Aleksey Zuev

winter storm:

the peering cat

squints and blinks

Yaso

from Snow Falling From a Bamboo Leaf: The Art of Haiku

by Hiag Akmakjian

There’s something about a cat. A cat sitting in a window, watching the world, observing each detail. The stillness of a cat, alert but relaxed.  Like in the poem "Pax" ,by D.H. Lawrence, where the cat embodies a sense of belonging. It slips into place, and rests. How I admire that! To watch and rest until the time for action? To not be anxious or tense? To be one's self and trust. How beautiful. 

LXXII.

Raymond C. Booth

LXXII.

If all rivers are sweet,

where does the sea get its salt?

How do the seasons know

they must change their shirt?

Why so slowly in winter

and later with such a rapid shudder?

And how do the roots know

they must climb towards the light?

And then greet the air

with so many flowers and colors?

Is it always the same spring

who revives her role?

Pablo Neruda

The best questions are the first questions. Child questions. Wonder questions. “Why is the sky blue?” The remarkable thing about that question is that the child is aware that the sky could have been a colour other than blue. It seems as if we adults lose the ability to think this way.  Like in the fantasy books where children experience magic, but forget it as they get older. That always makes me sad. Why do we forget? Is it possible that this magic can return as we get older/wiser? I remember my university professor saying that the story arc goes from Innocence to Experience to Experience + Innocence, and that the last was best of all because it was Innocence that cannot be taken away. Neruda’s question poems remind me of that. These are Musing and Marvelling Questions rather than Requiring-an-Answer Questions. Child-like without being childish. Here is acknowledgement of mystery, of puzzles, of possibilities; awareness that things could have been another way, and a sense of wonder that they are the way they are. Neruda’s questions give me hope that we jaded, cynical, so-called “realists” simply haven’t reached the age of Wonder Wisdom yet.  So here’s to the return of wonder! And God help us on our way.

Spring on the Woodland Path

Nikolai Ustinov

SPRING ON THE WOODLAND PATH

So long a winter such an Arctic night!

I had forgot that ever spring was bright:

But hark! The blackbird's voice like a clear flame!

So long a winter, such an age of chill,

Made me forget this silver birch clad hill.

But see, the newborn sunbeams put to shame

Our long dead winter: bracken fronds like flame,

Pierce the new morning's saffron-watered light.

So long, so long the winter in our hearts,

We had forgotten that old grief departs

And had forgotten that our hands could meet.

So long, so long: Remember our last May

When there was sunshine still and every day

New swallows skimmed low down along the street.

Ay, spring shall come, but shall we ever meet

With the old hearts in this forgotten way?

FORD MADOX FORD

“I had forgot that ever spring was bright.” That has been true for me. The light – the longer days – the sun-warmth – all these I had forgotten. “But see, the new-born sunbeams put to shame/Our long dead winter.” I experience that too. Like shutting the door of a dark room and walking toward a bright one. And the music of the lines – “So long, so long the winter in our hearts, We had forgotten that old grief departs/ And had forgotten that our hands could meet.” The last poem I posted (“A Portrait of Grief”, by S. Bert Kingsley) also mentioned hands. Hands that are not there to reach for us. And here, the speaker is reminded – hands can meet – they did before. Will they again? Will the old hearts meet the way they did before? A happy/sad question. Encouraged by the light, and by the resurgence of memories, but also saddened by the changes in each other and the losses we have endured.