Thursday, December 16, 2010

Yule: First Day

Yule: First Day

I wish I could say that I was still and reflective, this being the First Day of Yule, alas, I was not. I did however take a moment, as I opened the shutters to let the sunshine in this morning, to lament that still, no snow covered the garden in a protective layer against the cold. This time of year, I welcome the snow, wish for it, await it eagerly. Snow is newness, transformative, insulating. I always look forward to the blue shadows cast by tree branches on the snow surface, and all the iridescent qualities that light on the snow possesses.


Snow With Trees For Adam, Amy Bradstreet 2010, digital painting

Besides, it is with the coming of snow that we are reminded that the earth will bloom again, with the snow melt.

The Onset by: Robert Frost (1874-1963)

ALWAYS the same, when on a fated night
At last the gathered snow lets down as white
As may be in dark woods, and with a song
It shall not make again all winter long
Of hissing on the yet uncovered ground,
I almost stumble looking up and round,
As one who overtaken by the end
Gives up his errand, and lets death descend
Upon him where he is, with nothing done
To evil, no important triumph won,
More than if life had never been begun.

Yet all the precedent is on my side:
I know that winter death has never tried
The earth but it has failed: the snow may heap
In long storms an undrifted four feet deep
As measured against maple, birch and oak,
It cannot check the peeper's silver croak;
And I shall see the snow all go down hill
In water of a slender April rill
That flashes tail through last year's withered brake
And dead weeds, like a disappearing snake.
Nothing will be left white but here a birch,
And there a clump of houses with a church.


So let that be my first day wish for Yule: Let It Snow!

2 comments:

  1. I love that digital painting and your post as always! perfect frost poem for our onslaught of snow predicted.....happy yule!

    ReplyDelete
  2. love!! I'm excited to troll on through your archives.... I would love to live in Maine.
    (found my way here from tumblr/from greenwich) :)
    -Barbara

    ReplyDelete

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