Blog

Friday, December 10, 2010

Poetry Friday: Brrrr!!!

It's cold here in the deep South. No snow. No ice. Just cold, the kind we don't usually see until late January. It makes me want to wrap up in a blanket in front of a fire with a cup of hot tea and a good book.

Yesterday, I did just that. I've been reading Buffalo Soldiers by Tom Willard. He does a great job of presenting the big picture of life in the Tenth Cavalry, while weaving the story of one black soldier from enlistment to retirement. A good winter read.

It's poetry Friday and I've been absent for a while. Maybe I'll turn over a new leaf, make a new resolution, or just get more organized in the coming new year. We'll see.

Here is a poem I wrote a few years back. The cold reminded me of it.

Still, She Cannot Write the Spring

It was a cold Christmas
That chilled the roots and left no promise
Against the hard consonants of November.
A songless sparrow picks lichen
From trees standing bare in the wind
And listens with her for a touch
Of sunlight, for words to melt the icy ground,
To bear the burden of a crocus
Rising through frozen earth.


Innisfree Poetry Journal, 2006

More Poetry Friday here with Jama.


9 comments:

  1. Lovely poem, Dori. I've been shivering all week here in Virginia, too. What's up with such cold temps so early in the season?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, Jama. I appreciate you hosting this week. Maybe January and February will be warm this year. You never know!

    ReplyDelete
  3. You had me at the title. This should come as no surprise. Love your work!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks for reading, Irene. The feeling is mutual.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Welcome back to Poetry Friday!

    We're shivering in the rain today -- it's forecast to become ice and snow tonight and it's making it hard to remember those crocus bulbs we planted a couple of months ago...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Mmmm....lovely. And what a great title! I have the worst time with titles.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks for stopping, Mary Lee. I hope your crocuses push through the snow. I love those little flowers.

    Carlie, I have an awful time with titles, too. This one didn't have a title for the longest time, until I realized the first line needed to be the title. That was an aha! moment.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Oh, I love the songless sparrow and the hard consonants of November. Lovely!

    I find such beauty in the barrenness of winter (while I generally despise, say, the barrenness of hot desert landscapes), and your poem brings that to life, even if the speaker doesn't seem to appreciate the weather too much:>)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thank you, Laura. I, too, love the sparseness of winter woods, the space to see the framework beneath the summer bloom. It's the cold gets me wishing for spring.

    ReplyDelete