It looks like Boston is in for a White Christmas this year, given what Mother Nature dropped on us over the weekend. The photo at right shows how one of our apartment windows looked on Sunday morning, before a passing storm had finished blanketing our streets (and trees and cars and anything else left uncovered).
This, the season’s first BIG snowfall, brought to mind for me some of my favorite poems about snow and winter. I thought I’d kick off the week by sharing two of those here and close it, on Christmas Day, with a third.
In the meantime, the retail frenzy will continue, as Josie and Elizabeth meet the needs of customer after customer at The Flying Pig and we at Wellesley Booksmith do the same for our crowd — just as soon as they’ve finished shoveling out their driveways!
Today’s first poem comes from Moon, Have You Met My Mother? The Collected Poems of Karla Kuskin, illustrated by Sergio Ruzzier (HarperCollins/Laura Geringer Books, 2003), where it appears on page 165.
Summer is gone
and so are the roses.
Sidewalks are icy
and so are our noses.
Noses are rosy
and so are our cheeks
and will be for many long
wintery weeks.
This next poem appears in Winter Poems, selected by Barbara Rogasky and illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman (Scholastic, 1994). (Note that this poem offers some comfort to those of you are NOT fans of this particular season.)
I Heard a Bird Sing
by Oliver HerfordI heard a bird sing
In the dark of December
A magical thing
And sweet to remember:
"We are nearer to Spring
Than we were in September,"
I heard a bird sing
In the dark of December.
Anyone else have favorite words for winter? If so, please share them here.
Flakes drift down… those clouds have really BAD dandruff Flakes cling to boughs birds tussle at the feeder Flakes drift the roads and as the plow grinds by, I sit, warm indoors with cup of tea, and look at snow in the best possible place… A BOOK!
School children shout for joy. Snow falls. Cold winds slide through trees and cracked windowpanes. The falling snow blows. Sidewalks dampen black with melt. Hard earth oozes slick mud. Snow, unheeding, falls. Dry brown leaves bleach beige Living grass turns fairy-silver Persistent snow creeps down. Etched trees tarnish the pewter sky. Lamplight is warmest now, as Snow silently falls.
“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.” Robert Frost
under the snow green grass— the new year —Andrea Vlahakis