Winter Continues

The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and nothing that is.

Wallace Stevens, 1923


I did have a mind of winter, many long years, and when winter came, I did not mind. It was all winter to me, then, so what did it matter that the ice outside reflected the ice within me?

Then I experienced a thawing and meltwaters carried the snow and ice away. And now I feel the cold wind and the ice approaching once again, and it is so cold it burns.

The difference this time will be, I hope, that the winter is only temporary. Some day, sooner or later, the wind will shift and blow mildly from the south, and the grass will be uncovered and the daffodils will push their way out of the earth. When that happens, I will drink it in, and welcome spring into myself, and I will make room for all the seasons within me.

Winter, again

258

There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons --
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes --

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us --
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are --

None may teach it -- Any --
'Tis the Seal Despair --
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air --

When it comes, the Landscape listens --
Shadows -- hold their breath --
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death --

Emily Dickinson 1861

When I tell people my favorite poet is Emily Dickinson, I often get a remark that she is too depressing. It is true that she writes about death a lot. She writes of death intellectually, questioningly, ambivalently, even tenderly, exploring the concept and inviting me to explore with her. Those poems I do not find depressing.

This one I do. It's been running through my head all day. I've had too much winter, I think. Literally and figuratively.

Winter

Desert Places

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it--it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less--
A blanket whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert spaces.

Robert Frost


Winter is a struggle for me. It is the time of year when it is easiest to dwell upon my own desert spaces within me. Spring, summer, fall all bring with them opportunities to fill myself in the joy and beauty of nature. But when winter comes and that blankness seems to fall across the land, it also falls in me.

I do my best to keep it at bay. I have my little interests and my daily escapes, into books, or handiwork, or entertaining friends. But the little shocks of horror that come when I glimpse the stretches of expressionless blankness come more frequently in winter. The silences that in spring are drowned in rushing streams and in summer are eclipsed by the buzz of the locust and in fall are masked by the crunching of leaves underfoot are allowed to ring in the silence of falling snow. And the emptiness that is filled in spring with new green grass and in summer with riots of flowers and in fall with the blaze of the turning leaves is in winter echoed everywhere by white blank snow and a grey blank sky.

But although it is harder in winter to resist the desert places, it is not impossible. It is just necessary to look harder for the beauty to escape them. One morning, I went out after a snowfall, and I expected a world of blank whiteness. What I found instead was a world of color just awaiting my eyes, should I trouble to see. And I saw the snow at dawn was clear blue, not white. And the vibrant red of the crabapples and the solid, reassuring brown of the branches were all willing to be seen.