Embracing Winter
A poet evokes the season
The calendar announces winter is officially here. But the tenor of the season has already been with us for several weeks. Daylight shrank. Cold snaps arrived. And storms of snow, ice, and driving rains have swept across our great continent.
Each year, with this turn of the seasons, I am transported back, through space and time, memories flooding forth.
This winter finds me back in my native Texas. I have returned after most of a lifetime living away. My job meant I spent many winters on the road, meeting people in times of strife, despair, and struggle, but also hope, resilience, and even exuberance. I always was aware that locations foreign and distant for me were home to those who lived there.
I think of cold nights and warm hearths, pain and joy, yearning and contentment. Winter has a way of underscoring the more dramatic contours of our lives.
While work took me away a lot of the time, my fondest memories are invariably of my own home and family. In my reminiscences, a particular poem comes to mind, a favorite that I read aloud to my children when they were young (trying to encourage an interest in poetry).
It is "Winter: A Dirge" by the Scottish poet Robert Burns. I love its mixture of evocative imagery and full embrace for the mysteries of winter. There is a humility in understanding that the hardships of the season, and of life more generally, are beyond our ability to fully comprehend. We can find solace and resilience in appreciating the cycles of nature and forces much larger and more powerful than our whims, our frustrations, and our sense of self-importance.
I share it with you here, in the spirit of Steady. I would love to hear your thoughts about the season and the poem in the comments below.
Winter: A Dirge
BY ROBERT BURNS
The wintry west extends his blast,
And hail and rain does blaw;
Or, the stormy north sends driving forth
The blinding sleet and snaw:
While tumbling brown, the burn comes down,
And roars frae bank to brae;
And bird and beast in covert rest,
And pass the heartless day.
The sweeping blast, the sky o’ercast,
The joyless winter-day,
Let others fear, to me more dear
Than all the pride of May:
The tempest’s howl, it soothes my soul,
My griefs it seems to join;
The leafless trees my fancy please,
Their fate resembles mine!
Thou Pow’r Supreme, whose mighty scheme
These woes of mine fulfil,
Here, firm, I rest, they must be best,
Because they are Thy will!
Then all I want (O, do Thou grant
This one request of mine!)
Since to enjoy Thou dost deny,
Assist me to resign.
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Dan, I love your choice of poem today. I hope you enjoy my meager effort on day with 12" of snow.
Value of Long Nights Cold Days
Living in northwest Washington
In the land of fir and cedar forests
Where volcano peaks tower white most
Of the year… winter brings snow seldom
However, when snow whitens the lowlands
With silence, the beauty always comforts me.
I light a fire, open the drapes, crawl
Under mother’s old, crocheted afghan throw
And read… while glancing out the window
At the flakes tumbling serenely, snuggling
Against their neighbors in profound peace…
Conflict in the country’s soul muffled.
From this snow a new story is emerging
Who we are, what we are, reimagined.
I’m really a fall person, not winter. But I was raised in Chicago with its very cold and snowy winters and what I remember most is mom sending us in our way to school with a warm tummy: oatmeal or even tomato soup. All the kids in the neighborhood walked to our parish school. I often think that winter has its purpose like every season. Trees and plants have no leaves. Snow and cold blanket the earth. But down deep growth is taking place. It’s really not a dead season. It’s very much alive. I like to curl up with a warm blanket and a hot drink and read or watch the trees in the woods behind my house and think about the growth that is going on underground. It’s a good time for me to think about the growth going on in me. After all, we never stop growing either.