Thursday, January 30, 2014

The Snowfall Is So Silent by Miguel de Unamuno

from Pinterest
 
 
Today our snow is melting.  I'll miss it, but it was fun while it lasted...
 
 
*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
 
 
 
The Snowfall Is So Silent
by Miguel de Unamuno                                
translated by Robert Bly                        
The snowfall is so silent,
so slow,
bit by bit, with delicacy
it settles down on the earth
and covers over the fields.
The silent snow comes down
white and weightless; 
snowfall makes no noise,
falls as forgetting falls, 
flake after flake.
It covers the fields gently
while frost attacks them
with its sudden flashes of white;
covers everything with its pure
and silent covering;
not one thing on the ground
anywhere escapes it.
And wherever it falls it stays,
content and gay,
for snow does not slip off 
as rain does,
but it stays and sinks in.
The flakes are skyflowers,
pale lilies from the clouds,
that wither on earth.
They come down blossoming
but then so quickly
they are gone;
they bloom only on the peak,
above the mountains,
and make the earth feel heavier
when they die inside.
Snow, delicate snow,
that falls with such lightness 
on the head,
on the feelings,
come and cover over the sadness
that lies always in my reason.

==========================
                               
 
 

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

First Snow, Kerhonkson by Diane di Prima

 
 
Blizzard once again in the swamps today.
 
 
Neighborhood boy headed for the only hill with his wooden 'sled'.


 
Let it snow.  The deep South is a winter wonderland for the second time in a week.  Unheard of!  We sit and read and look up often, staring in wonder...  xo
 
+ + + + + + + + + +
 
 


First Snow, Kerhonkson

By Diane di Prima b. 1934     
for Alan
 
This, then, is the gift the world has given me
(you have given me)
softly the snow
cupped in hollows
lying on the surface of the pond
matching my long white candles
which stand at the window
which will burn at dusk while the snow
fills up our valley
this hollow
no friend will wander down
no one arriving brown from Mexico
from the sunfields of California, bearing pot
they are scattered now, dead or silent
or blasted to madness
by the howling brightness of our once common vision
and this gift of yours—
white silence filling the contours of my life.
 
Diane di Prima, “First Snow, Kerhonkson” from Pieces of a Song.

"Pieces of a Song" by the amazing Diane di Prima.
 

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Ponder This:



". . . and my day, which nothing interrupts, is like a clock-face without hands. . ."  Rainer Maria Rilke, from "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge".



 
"Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life."  ~William Faulkner
 
 
 
 
Read Rilke.  He never disappoints. 
 
 
 
+ + + + +
 
 
 
 
Sophie, waking from a cat nap.
 
 


Friday, January 24, 2014

Dust of Snow by Robert Frost....We Have Snow!!!

It's snowing here for the first time in many, many moons.  The silence is awesome.  I woke at 2 a.m. and noticed the glow coming through a window.  It was the gorgeous, white, magical snow.  We got about three inches.  (Don't laugh, you yanks!)  I can't wait for the kids in the neighborhood to wake up and see this.  It'll probably be gone by tomorrow, but it's like a gift, a beautiful, rare gift from Mother Nature.  I immediately thought of one of my favorite Robert Frost poems.  Enjoy!  xo

DUST OF SNOW
By Robert Frost
     
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
 
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.



6:00 a.m. in the swamps of Louisiana....snow!
 
Only one of my cats would touch the snow...Gir, or course.  He's under my truck.
 
Natasha Blythe in the snow.
 
Let it snow...
 
 
 
 


 

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Every Riven Thing by Christian Wiman

An amazingly awesome book.



EVERY RIVEN THING
By Christian Wiman

God goes, belonging to every riven thing he's made
sing his being simply by being
the thing it is:
stone and tree and sky,
man who sees and sings and wonders why


God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing he's made,
means a storm of peace.
Think of the atoms inside the stone.
Think of the man who sits alone
trying to will himself into a stillness where


God goes belonging. To every riven thing he's made
there is given one shade
shaped exactly to the thing itself:
under the tree a darker tree;
under the man the only man to see


God goes belonging to every riven thing. He's made
the things that bring him near,
made the mind that makes him go.
A part of what man knows,
apart from what man knows,


God goes belonging to every riven thing he's made.

__________________________________________

rive
rīv/
verb
past participle: riven
  1. 1.
    split or tear apart violently.
___________________________
 
Spearmint in red glass.  My Mint loves winter here in Louisiana.
 
 

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Starlings in Winter by Mary Oliver

From the following poem by Mary Oliver.  Poster from Pinterest.
 

Starlings in Winter

Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly

they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can't imagine

how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.
Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,

even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard, I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

"Starlings in Winter" by Mary Oliver, from Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays.
 
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It is frigid here in the deep South, as in under 20 degrees last night. I do not like the cold or I would live 'up North'.  I envy those of you in Canada and all points North who can handle the snow and cold.  Kudos from a certified Southern Belle sitting here wearing three sets of clothes and three pairs of socks...and a sock hat.  Yes, I have heat.  LOL!!!
 
I'm busy reading (a re-read of the magnificent book, "The Wood Wife", by Terri Windling) and loving 2014.  I'm learning Origami and teaching myself to draw.  I'm in love with Prismacolor Colored Pencils and Watercolor Pencils.  You're never too old to learn something new.  And thank God for gift cards.  :-)  Happy 2014, again. 
 
xo,
Marion
 
"The Old Year has gone.  Let the dead past bury its own dead.  The New Year has taken possession of the clock of time.  All hail the duties and possibilities of the coming twelve months! " ~Edward Payson Powell

from Pinterest