To the New Year

Here’s a wonderful poem by W.S.Merwin: To the New Year By W. S. Merwin With what stillness at last you appear in the valley your first sunlight reaching down to touch the tips of a few high leaves that do not stir as though they had not noticed and did not know you at all

a place where houses all are churches and have spires

  In honor of this day, here’s a poem from Robert Frost: Christmas Trees By Robert Frost (A Christmas Circular Letter) The city had withdrawn into itself And left at last the country to the country; When between whirls of snow not come to lie And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove A

The pagan origin of Christmas

Christmas tree in the Conservatory at Longwood Gardens Pennsylvania USA   When I was an undergraduate, and reading T.S. Eliot’s ” Waste Land” for the first time, I sought out The Golden Bough for help in understanding his references.  That book was, and still is, a gold mine for me.  Here is what it says about

approaching the Winter Solstice

Just a few more days until the shortest day and the longest night, and we begin again to turn toward the morning. Here is some interesting information I found about the Solstice on the gardening site I visit: “Yule, is when the dark half of the year relinquishes to the light half.   Starting the next

Evening unpeels our histories

Another Advent poem, this one by Steven Leake: Advent   We await the fullness of time – the fullness of the moon     Somewhere your star-struck choir sings   As the evening unpeels our histories.   The world is here again!   I feel the breathing of yuletide fires,   The ribboned refrains of

Thy branches ne’er remember

The wonderful English poet John Keats died when he was only 26, of tuberculosis.  I think this poem of his reflects his sadness : “In drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy tree, Thy branches ne’er remember Their green felicity: The north cannot undo them With a sleety whistle through them; Nor frozen thawings glue them From

December Rain

Here’s a poem by W.S. Merwin: “This is what I have heard at last the wind in December lashing the old trees with rain unseen rain racing along the tiles under the moon wind rising and falling wind with many clouds trees in the night wind.”        

December Moon

Here’s one of my favorite Christmas cards. No idea who the artist is.   We’ve had just one good snow here, and that was a month ago. Remnants of it hang in shady corners. Here’s a lovely snow poem by May Sarton:   “Before going to bed After a fall of snow I look out

O the rising of the sun

painting by Viviana Gonzalez   Here’s a lovely verse from a seasonal song: “The holly and the ivy, When they are both full grown, Of all trees that are in the wood, The holly bears the crown: O, the rising of the sun, And the running of the deer The playing of the merry organ, Sweet

Happy Birthday, Emily Dickinson

  Emily Dickinson, one of my favorite poets, was born on this day in 1830.  The writer Nuala O’Connor said this about Dickinson: “Emily Dickinson did not leave any poetics or treatise to explain her life’s work, so we can come to her poetry with minds and hearts open, and unearth whatever it is we