Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face. -Victor Hugo
*******
Our family hunted down the perfect Christmas tree on Saturday. It was an especially good year because it only took us 10 minutes, which is by far the record for the shortest time spent getting a tree. Usually we have to look at every tree on the tree farm--twice. But this year we wimped out and bought one off a lot. So even though we still looked at all the trees twice, there just weren't that many to look at. And my children were happy since it was next to a playground. Okay, I have to admit I was happy with the playground too. Let me tell you, going down the slide with ski pants on helps you catch some serious air! It's like a rocket launcher! (My daughter pointed out this guy standing there watching me go down the slide. I told her he wished he had snow pants on so he could do it too.)
Anyway, a lot of Anne Sexton's poetry is dark, but a fellow teacher shared this delightful poem with us last week. And I thought I'd pass it along to you.
Enjoy the snow!
Snow
Snow,
blessed snow,
comes out of the sky
like bleached flies.
The ground is no longer naked.
The ground has on its clothes.
The trees poke out of sheets
and each branch wears the sock of God.
There is hope.
There is hope everywhere.
I bite it.
Someone once said:
Don't bite till you know
if it's bread or stone.
What I bite is all bread,
rising, yeasty as a cloud.
There is hope.
There is hope everywhere.
Today God gives milk
and I have the pail.
Poem: "Snow" by Anne Sexton,. © Houghton Mifflin, 1975. Reprinted with permission.
6 comments:
Snow is for beagles and bunnies--and yes sliding too. I have been finishing up the siding on my house and have appreciated that we don't have a foot of the stuff. The wind has a fair bite some days, but it's not unbearable.
Winter triggers a desire for horse-drawn sleighs, a warm blanket, and some mulled wine or cider.
For a really cool escape weekend, go to Hillman, I think. They put you in a horse-drawn sleigh and take you about 45 minutes through the woods--might see elk along the way--to a cabin without electricity or running water and serve up a fabulous five-course meal. Not cheap, but an awesome trip.
Bittersweet is easier to find in winter. I really enjoy my walks.
We'll get our tree this week.
Why do we have so many one or two responses? On a dog forum I visit several time a day, comments go on for 20 or more comments in some instances--depends on the topic. I see the blog as a way to keep in touch with other writers and as a learning tool. It's a nice place to try out new ideas in the safety of our group.It's frustrating that more people don't take advantage of it.
I hear you Larry. It is discouraging enough that if I hadn't made a commitment to post at least once a week, I would probably let it lapse. Maybe people are not comfortable with the internet. Or maybe people just don't feel the need to connect to other writers the way we do.
Writing is such a priority for me that I have a hard time understanding writers that just write now and then. I'm learning (very slowly) that writing meets different needs for different people. I guess part of the problem is that I came into PW thinking that it was all serious writers. Not that it doesn't have serious writers, but writing isn't the high priority for everyone that it is for me.
Thank you for sticking with the blog--otherwise it would be REALLY depressing for me! Like I'm talking to myself.
And, I remind myself and you, it is Christmas which is a crazy time of year for many people. (including me, but I have that obsession thing going for me, so I'm actually writing even more than usual. Deadlines are great things.)
To me, it's like networking. We all face or have faced similar problems: editors that don't recognize greatness when reading our manuscripts, writer's block, rejections, etc. The more we support each other the more we learn and write. Reading that others are writing every day encourages me to do likewise.
Right now, the steroid scandal is on my mind. I grew up after the great players of the 20s and 30s: Ruth, Gerrig, Cobb, and others. Al Kaline, Roger Maris, and Micky Mantle were our heroes. They played the game because they loved baseball. These latest drug users are a poor example for kids. I remember a painted banner on the wall at the old gym. "When the final score is tallied, it matters not whether you won or lost, but how you played the game." It applies to all walks of life. I may be a nieve "boomer" out of touch with today, but honesty still matters to me. These guys should be banned from professional baseball for life. The woman track star lost her Olymopic medals. Should pro ball players get off with less?
Yeah, we were just talking about the steroid thing at dinner tonight--except more about the Tour da France than baseball. I think it is hard when it gets to be so prevalent, and managers turn a blind eye--or even encourage the use of them. I think there should be a good testing system, and we should go from there. No matter how it once was, it isn't anymore.
Sarah;
Maybe it can't be like it used to be, but if the commisioner, managers, owners, and others would get some balls, at least we might not have cheating to win. Bonds' home run record is tarnished and meaningless compared to Ruth or Marris. How much value does it have to a person if he knows he got it by cheating? Had he used a loaded bat, it would have been illegal. A man still has to look at himself in the mirror every morning.
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