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Even if the calendar is slow, the weather and my aching bones tell me winter is acomin' in (lhude sing goddam!). So since the Autumn poetry thread went well, how about a Winter Poetry thread. But PLEASE! no holiday doggerel.
Whose woods these are I think I know,
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
- Robert Frost
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
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Carpal Tunnel
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ICE STORM
The language of the heart would desecrate,
The chastity of this moon-blinded night,
these iridescent trees of ice, these great,
ascetic areas of silver light
that have been fields before the winter rain
froze on the snow to magnify the moon.
The trees and vines tinkle a thin refrain
like a glass windbell's tune.
Let those who go abroad be solitary,
stifle the heart and see how this unknown
and brittle world, unreal and legendary,
was filmed in crystal for the mind alone.
Jessica Powers
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Pooh-Bah
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Early Snow
Amazed I looked
out of the window and saw
the early snow coming down casually,
almost drifting, over
the gardens, then the gardens began
to vanish as each white, six pointed
snowflake lay down without a sound with all
the others. I thought, how incredible
were their numbers. I thought of dried
leaves drifting spate after spate
out of the forests,
the fallen sparrows, the hairs of all our heads,
as, still, the snowflakes went on pouring softly through
what had become dusk or anyway flung
a veil over the sun. And I thought
how not one looks like another
though each is exquisite, fanciful, and
falls without argument. It was now nearly
evening. Some crows landed and tried
to walk around then flew off. They were perhaps
laughing in crow talk or anyway so it seemed
and I might have joined in, there was something
that wonderful and refreshing
about what was by then a confident, white blanket
carrying out its
cheerful work, covering ruts, softening
the earth’s trials, but at the same time
there was some kind of almost sorrow that fell
over me. It was
the loneliness again. After all
what is Nature, it isn’t
kindness, it isn’t unkindness. And I turned
and opened the door, and still the snow poured down
smelling of iron and the pale, vast eternal, and
there it was, whether I was ready or not:
the silence; the blank, white, glittering sublime.
Mary Oliver
From What Do We Know, Poems and Prose Poems, Da Capo Press, 2002.
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old hand
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Now is the winter of your discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun outdoors
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Carpal Tunnel
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I am an ignoramus about poetry. But Frost without beautiful words or images evokes
thoughts that make his poems memorable.
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Carpal Tunnel
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winter is acomin' in (lhude sing goddam!)
Well, that was gonna be my contribution...
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Carpal Tunnel
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i went looking for an excerpt from John Greenleaf Whittier's
Snow-Bound--it is properly a December poem.. but it is most definately a winter one.. these are just the first xx lines of thousand or more!
THE sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east; we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air.
Meanwhile we did our nightly chores,
Brought in the wood from out the doors,
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows;
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;
And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
Impatient down the stanchion rows
The cattle shake their walnut bows;
While, peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold's pole of birch,
The cock his crested helmet bent
And down his querulous challenge sent.
Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag, wavering to and fro,
Crossed and recrossed the wingëd snow:
And ere the early bedtime came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.
The old familiar sights of ours
Took marvellous shapes; strange domes and towers
Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood,
Or garden-wall, or belt of wood;
A smooth white mound the brush-pile showed,
A fenceless drift what once was road;
The bridle-post an old man sat
With loose-flung coat and high cocked hat;
The well-curb had a Chinese roof;
And even the long sweep, high aloof,
In its slant spendor, seemed to tell
Of Pisa's leaning miracle.
the poem goes on for ever, but it does capture a nor'easter snow storm and aftermath..
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Carpal Tunnel
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Whitecaps
shoulder the waves
upon wintery shores.
Glistening
o'er icy snow
While the north wind
flails the lake
ending its romance
with the south wind.
Marie E. Jackson
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Sonnet LXXIII
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourisht by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
-- Wm. Shakespeare
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enthusiast
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Thanks, Bob, for Sonner 73, a rare gem that reveals something new with each reading.
And from As You Like It:
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude:
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho, sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly.
Then heigh-ho the holly!
This life is most jolly.
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friends remembered not.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Snow Fence
I built a fence - a fence for the wind.
I neither planned to stop it long
Nor fence it in from it's night time wandering.
My thoughts were this-
If she is bent on such mischief as drifting snow,
Why not pile it here along the hill
Instead of on a road where I must go.
So I built a fence - a fence for the wind.
Six hundred crates and boxes in a row
Were piled along a hillside path
Where she must go to reach my road.
With six hundred crates and boxes
I built a fence - a fence for the wind.
And then, when all the skies were fair,
With a million snowflakes in her hair,
She came dancing through the night.
She kissed the willow tree in passing,
Took the lane,
Came down across another field to fill my road.
She never even saw the fence I had built -
A fence for the wind.
-Max Ellison
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old hand
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enter no(silence is the blood whose flesh
is singing)silence:but unsinging. In
spectral such hugest how hush,one
dead leaf stirring makes a crash
-far away(as far as alive)lies
april;and i breathe-move-and-seem some
perpetually roaming whylessness-
autumn has gone:will winter never come?
o come,terrible anonymity;enfold
phantom me with the murdering minus of cold
-open this ghost with millionary knives of wind-
scatter his nothing all over what angry skies and
gently
(very whiteness:absolute peace,
never imaginable mystery)
descend
- e e cummings
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Carpal Tunnel
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WINTER, BEFORE THE WAR
by Waclaw Potocki (Polish, 1625-1696)
The frost bit deep. When heavy guns were dragged
Across a marsh no inch of bogland sagged.
The dubious fords raised solid crystal beams.
A glass bridge spanned the deeper parts of streams.
The snow was shameless in its secret keeps
Though clouds had dumped it carelessly in heaps;
But where frost parched it, sparkling silks were spun
And polished lilies to receive the sun.
Someone to whom the war means nothing yet
Glides on a sledge, its runners barely wet,
So light it seems: one horse has leopard spots
And one's hawk-mottled, bird-like as it trots.
A hunter with his hounds treks through the snow.
But, soaking toast in beer by the hearth's glow,
An old man sits. He doesn't want to drive
Off in a sledge. The Spring will soon arrive
And his death with it. Now, since his teeth have gone,
He sucks soaked bread. If any man lives on
Until his youngest grand-daughter gives birth,
This is the last delight he'll find on earth.
In short: the sun reached Capricorn -- no more --
And Winter fell from heaven to this hard floor.
(translated by Jerzy Peterkiewicz and Burns Singer)
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Carpal Tunnel
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FOUND IN A STORM
by William Stafford (1913-1993)
A storm that needed a mountain
met it where we were:
we woke up in a gale
that was reasoning with our tent,
and all the persuaded snow
streaked along, guessing the ground.
We turned from that curtain, down.
But sometime we will turn
back to the curtain and go
by plan through an unplanned storm,
disappearing into the cold,
meanings in search of a world.
(from The Darkness Around Us is Deep, Selected Poems of William Stafford ©1993)
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FOUND IN A STORM by William Stafford (1913-1993)
Ooo! Whitty, I like that. This Stafford fellow could be said to be the Hemingway of Modern Poetry. But I think he's much better than that.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Ooo! Whitty, I like that. This Stafford fellow could be said to be the Hemingway of Modern Poetry. But I think he's much better than that.Yes, milum...Stafford is indeed a gem of American (US) Literature that I "discovered" in 1992, just a year before his death after a distinguished career. He didn't cater to the "poetry establishment" (or to the 'anti-academics' for that matter)...he just stood his own ground. And his Native American heritage brings a distinctive perspective to his musings. Here's a poem from the same volume that should be apropos for a gathering of linguaphiles  (and it's even in keeping with the winter theme): HOW THESE WORDS HAPPENED
In winter, in the dark hours, when others
were asleep, I found these words and put them
together by their appetites and respect for
each other. In stillness, they jostled. They traded
meanings while pretending to have only one.
Monstrous alliances never dreamed of before
began. Sometimes they last. Never again
do they separate in this world. They die
together. They have a fidelity that no
purpose or pretense can ever break.
And all of this happens like magic to the words
in those dark hours when others sleep.
--William Stafford© 1992 by William Stafford
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(especially for sjm ) THE SNOW
by Emily Dickinson
It sifts from leaden sieves,
It powders all the wood,
It fills with alabaster wool
The wrinkles of the road.
It makes an even face
Of mountain and of plain,--
Unbroken forehead from the east
Unto the east again.
It reaches to the fence,
It wraps it, rail by rail,
Till it is lost in fleeces;
It flings a crystal veil
On stump and stack and stem,--
The summer's empty room,
Acres of seams where harvests were,
Recordless, but for them.
It ruffles wrists of posts,
As rankles of a queen,--
Then stills its artisans like ghosts,
Denying they have been.
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Carpal Tunnel
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THE DEATH OF AUTUMN
by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
When reeds are dead and a straw to thatch the marshes,
And feathered pampas-grass rides into the wind
Like agéd warriors westward, tragic, thinned
Of half their tribe, and over the flattened rushes,
Stripped of its secret, open, stark and bleak,
Blackens afar the half-forgotten creek,--
Then leans on me the weight of the year, and crushes
My heart. I know that Beauty must ail and die,
And will be born again,--but ah, to see
Beauty stiffened, staring up at the sky!
Oh, Autumn! Autumn!--What is the Spring to me?
(from First Fig and other Poems, © 1921 by Edna St. Vincent Millay)
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Pooh-Bah
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If Winter's here …
My knee aches:
So do my Shoulders and my Elbows.
The Rain falls
Into my Soul, dampens my Spirit.
The Day dawns
Windows are Dark with gleaming Frost curls.
The Ice cracks
Inside my Brain and at my Toes' ends
The World's End.
And sunshine thru the frost
Glinters in my eyes
Making blinks and tears.
Black tree-shapes against
The pale blue of winter skies
Tempt me out from winter's fireside,
From friendly community of ales and tales.
The squirrel's tail flirts on the branch,
Rabbits' footprints in the snow
Say life is with us yet.
The sparrows, cold-huddled on my gutter,
Nudge each other.
"Look," they murmur, "Look."
"Spring is coming."
© H.Walklett 2002
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addict
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I love it, Hilary! Is there no end to your talents?  I particularly like The Ice cracks
Inside my Brain and at my Toes' ends - very evocative winter image.
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old hand
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It's cold, but
I think winter's frost has thawed
long hanging
suspended summer guile.
What's that! Is winter warm and cosy?
With its slippery paths, limbs frozen stiff?
Surely its biting chill, with cheeks rosy,
icicles, goose bumps, and snow drifts.
But it's also snug by the fireside
with snow against the window pane,
and what was that one line? - oh yes,
there's a pleasure that is born of pain!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Thanks, Rhuby! I made meself a hard-copy, I did!
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Carpal Tunnel
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I love it, am going to print it out and frame it. Thanks, Hilary!
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(especially for sjm )
THE SNOW
by Emily Dickinson
muito grazie mijn amigo.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Pepper time's a-cumin' in;
Loud sing hallelu.
Dig deep the garden,
Fertilize too.
Hot peppers, sweet peppers,
Habañeros if you dare.
Heaps of colorful tomatoes;
Onions require little care.
Salsa time will soon be here;
Smokin' hot--and without peer.
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Salsa time will soon be here;
Smokin' hot--and without peer.Tino pai! ycliuOf course, given my extreme allergy to ethanol, the last line could also be read "Smokin' hot--and without beer" Arohanui.
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Carpal Tunnel
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(hey, BTW, by...I always make a copy of your work wherever and whenever it appears ) Well tonight, Friday, we're waiting here on the East Coast for the first really major nor'easter in quite some time to commence around midnight and continue through till late Sunday (and the system's supposed to have a lot ot T-storm activity so I may not be able to get back online till Sunday night)...never know how these storms are going to turn out until they blow up and get going, but the predictions are pretty intense....sometimes they're less than anticipated, sometimes worse. So, while sitting here in the calm before the storm, I thought I might as well go along with the flow and post a piece of mine that seems to fit the occasion: WINTER WAVES
Roll on, roll, against frost-bitten splinters of sand,
Roll against ridges of raised grains determined to beat the tide,
Roll against bulkheads cracked with ice as they flourish the buzz ..............of the wind,
Roll on, roll, take a jetty-tip beneath your spray to drown............in your crystalline paint,
Roll against the gales of heavy sky crying to steal your foam,
Roll against marina-ed boats used only to a shiver of glassen ripple......................on their reach of bay,
Roll against pillars of bridges until you strip from them the crustaceons..................that once colonied with picturesque dexterity there,
Roll on, roll, crash against the rock, the sand, the wood, the blind........walls of sky, slake your immovable nobility!
Roll on, roll, crash against the dashed bits of debris that never claimed....................to take defeat to your borders!
Roll on, roll, crash against the fortitude of surrender, against........the farce of spirit that grew hauteur on your shores!
Roll on, crash, crash, crash! against the truce once offered............as a genuflecture to the relentless stride of your soul!
Roll on, crash, crash, crash! against the fevers of your forbidden weather............that flashed its lulls to draw whole nations............into the security of your leisure!
Crash! Crash! Roll...roll on, roll...your energy spent on escapades................................................................of tameness,.........your icy rise of temper more a friend than foe,.........roll your reminders of flooded days.................against the soft dry timbers of our hearts...roll...
--David Hovan Check© 1988 by David Check
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old hand
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Sorry Whitman, I had nothing original of my own to compete so I had to substitute a ringer - Mr. Williams.
Snow:
years of anger following
hours that float idly down --
the blizzard
drifts its weight
deeper and deeper for three days
or sixty years, eh? Then
the S U N ! a clutter of
yellow and blue flakes --
Hairy looking trees stand out
in long alleys
over a wild solitude.
The man turns and there --
his solitary track stretched out
upon the world.
~ William Carlos Williams
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Carpal Tunnel
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~ William Carlos WilliamsThanks, milum, for featuring another esteemed New Jersey artist! William Carlos Williams was a physician in Paterson who somehow found the time between the hours of his practice to fashion a remarkable poetic career.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Whit:
Wonderful poem you pasted up there. Positively symphonic, it is!
milum:
And your Williams is certainly an antiphonal response.
I think the two work well together.
WW
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Wrongo WymeWong, My poem's better that Whit's. My poem's almost as good as RhubarbCommando's. After all I'm WILLIAN CARLOS WILLIAMS. 
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OP
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Winter Memories
Within the circuit of this plodding life
There enter moments of an azure hue,
Untarnished fair as is the violet
Or anemone, when the spring strews them
By some meandering rivulet, which make
The best philosophy untrue that aims
But to console man for his grievances.
I have remembered when the winter came,
High in my chamber in the frosty nights,
When in the still light of the cheerful moon,
On every twig and rail and jutting spout,
The icy spears were adding to their length
Against the arrows of the coming sun,
How in the shimmering noon of summer past
Some unrecorded beam slanted across
The upland pastures where the Johnswort grew;
Or heard, amid the verdure of my mind,
The bee's long smothered hum, on the blue flag
Loitering amidst the mead; or busy rill,
Which now through all its course stands still and dumb
Its own memorial, -- purling at its play
Along the slopes, and through the meadows next,
Until its youthful sound was hused at last
In the staid current of the lowland stream;
Or seen the furrows shine but late upturned,
And where the fieldfare followed in the rear,
When all the fields around lay bound and hoar
Beneath a thick integument of snow.
So by God's cheap economy made rich
To go upon my winter's task again.
-- Henry David Thoreau
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Carpal Tunnel
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THE CHILTERNS
by Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)
Your hands, my dear, adorable,
Your lips of tenderness
-- Oh, I've loved you faithfully and well,
Three years, or a bit less.
It wasn't a success.
Thank God, that's done! and I'll take the road,
Quit of my youth and you,
The Roman road to Wendover
By Tring and Lilley Hoo,
As a free man may do.
For youth goes over, the joys that fly,
The tears that follow fast;
And the dirtiest things we do must lie
Forgotten at the last;
Even Love goes past.
What's left behind I shall not find,
The splendour and the pain;
The splash of sun, the shouting wind,
And the brave sting of rain,
I may not meet again.
But the years, that take the best away,
Give something in the end;
And a better friend than love have they,
For none to mar or mend,
That have themselves to friend.
I shall desire and I shall find
The best of my desires;
The autumn road, the mellow wind
That soothes the darkening shires.
And laughter, and inn-fires.
White mist about the black hedgerows,
The slumbering Midland plain,
The silence where the clover grows,
And the dead leaves in the lane,
Certainly, these remain.
And I shall find some girl perhaps,
And a better one than you,
With eyes as wise, but kindlier,
And lips as soft, but true.
And I daresay she will do.
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