December 30, 2003
Oh So Quiet
Well, there’s so much to talk about, but nobody’s talking around here. Must be at a wedding or something… ;-)
No spirit for discussion of current events at the moment, so how about some poetry?
One of the things that makes my morning is Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. A bit pompous yes, some questionable selections yes, but overall an oasis in the commercial radio desert. Every great once in a while I will hear a poem that really speaks to me, even if I don’t really understand why. Below is one of my favorites from the past year.
The Thaw
by Marianne Wolfe, from The Berrypicker
Late in November
The morning sun shows the trees
In white against white.
There is a certainty that
Tomorrow will be the same.
For months thereafter
The days hang onto each other
Like timid sisters.
Nothing is changed but bed sheets
Where I lie white against white.
I move out of the solitude,
Attaching myself
To some sight or sound,
Wrapping myself in it
Like a cocoon inside a leaf.
Then one day in April
The branches of trees claw
At the passing clouds,
And the spaces between
Are filled like lungs in the thaw.
The days move quickly,
Bicycles coasting downhill,
And I wonder if
I am standing still
And the landscape is moving forward.
In the transition I emerge
As if from a cocoon, renewed;
Perhaps nude, I continue
Though no more beautiful
And knowing no more than before.