November 19, 2023
by Linda Dove, Chris Edwards, Robin McNallie, and David Lane
Apple Communion Beryl’s apples fall for Kroger boxes to enclose and keep till Sunday service-goers take and eat as many as they will. Through blue September days they fall, through nights that darken, lengthen, end all summer. They fill one season, yes. But empty first another. Fall apples then, the windfall sign that times and marks a season’s end -- that speak their sermons not in stone, come down all flesh and skin and stem as if uncursed from ancient Eden. Take and eat. But first in every fallen thing, every gift time takes and gives, like these old emblems of a fallen world, see good. David Lane Autumn, Sky and Earth Above me this November day, I track A thin contrail, stretched across the sky. Like a clothesline it seems against the span of blue, The sight so warmly domestic that the ground I tread Becomes, itself, suddenly raw and derelict— Fallen leaves, some strewn and curled, like conch shells, Others plastered flat, as if tattooed Into the roadway under my feet, And scarecrow trees, a leaf or two still on them Like dangling gloves, beckoning the complaining Crows grokking somewhere by now Beyond the circle of workmen, who are Staring down a backhoe-dug trench, they are About to fill in with a load of gravel. The digger clown in Hamlet, if present now, Would no doubt in dark drollery have A punning word for that trench’s filler: ‘Grave-All.’ Robin McNallie Emily Dickinson was a private poet of the romantic era and not appreciated until her many-back-of-the-envelope poems were discovered and published after her death. Many of her poems were about the natural world she watched from her window and about life’s big transitions such as birth, loss, mortality and eternity. # XLV As imperceptibly as grief The summer lapsed away.— Too imperceptible, at last, Too seem like perfidy. A quietness distilled As twilight long begun, Or Nature. spending with herself Sequestered afternoon. The dusk drew earlier in, The morning foreign shone,— A courteous, yet harrowing grace, As guest who would be gone. And thus, without a wing, Or service of a keel, Our summer made her light escape Into the beautiful. Emily Dickinson. The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson.
Chillmageddon Bone chill misery even in houses that have small bits of heat left if a pilot light fails as temperatures drop to near zero not as bad as a minus but not to where you want to do much more than curl up in a ball. You may think (helpfully or not) of all in cold climates who flee cities after bombs smash their homes, or holiday drivers stuck behind a pile-up: no food, water or cell charge, noon to midnight, or others, tricked into a long bus ride north, let out coatless, some shoeless in a strange city at 18 Fahrenheit. Did Titanic victims have it easier hitting water near Newfoundland, to die in minutes— the sea, 28 degrees? (Lovely beaches there, no swimmers). The announcement with videos of dogs and cats, chained, shivering, in cold-rain misery offers donors a cute tote bag. (Why not just cut the chains?) It is true that after enough time you will stop shivering and fall into a deep, sweet sleep? Imagine Your great grandparents carrying candles in near-frostbit hands on slushy nights, down to the privies where ice on the seat sticks to their skin. Or some troglodyte forebear heading home on bad night to warmth: temperature never below 50, and a woolly mastadon blanket when more comfort’s wanted? Still, we are cold. Chris Edwards
Counterpoint
Out of season once again, Christmas cactus blooms.
Yes, just as frost outside begins to end the sway
of light and sun. Tomorrow surely is another day
and well may bring for weeks at least, not doom
but Indian summer, time for cabbage, kale, and chard,
for maple gold and lavender and mums persisting
everywhere on steps and stoops (defiantly protesting
winter’s onslaught, there in terra cotta pots, on guard).
Enough is never quite enough. Year after year
the endless passage of the cycling stars takes us back
to where time started. Yet no garden almanac
keeps promises stars leave broken everywhere.
What lasts and what does not in counterpoint come clear,
what we want and what Time takes at odds this time of year.
David Lane
Season’s Transformation
Luminous was the sunset hour,
gusty clouds and cresting moon.
Leaves like swirling dervishes—
oak, maple, dogwood, birch—
danced around my fading garden.
Next day, an ashen sun cast a muted light.
Trees, near naked overnight, stood straight
like skeletons in shock. Leafy quilts
of lemon-brown and scarlet
covered lawn and plantings.
Excited by the season’s transformation
I played in churn and crackle underfoot
Inspired by the cool breath of autumn,
I romped with windy energy of squirrels,
acorn-agitated in their frenzy
before the winter freeze.
Daylight dimmed to early dusk
and, like a cloak,velvet night descended.
Did I then imagine a natural drama in my garden?
Did I feel the arms of shrubs draw in like mine,
shivering at their loss of leafy shelter?
Did I see and hear the trees in spasm shudder down
a last few bloodshot, paper scraps of color?
Linda Ankrah-Dove
Matilda
Did it even matter what we sang? We watched
her waltzing down the aisle, whistling, crooning. Was
her name Matilda too? Did she think we’d come
just to serenade her, snow in drifts everywhere
that bleak midwinter? Flapping hands, jerking knees
kept time with her every row—and tapping
feet that longed to dance with her or without her.
On the stage above them all (not quite an angel
choir) we sang as best we could: our glad tidings
that dark winter might not be for Bethlehem. Instead
we sang for all poor strays and waifs, right before us
there assembled, waiting, waiting just to dance their way
(God knows how far) out of darkness, out of Bedlam
at long last with us and Matilda, singing.
David Lane
Winter Nightfall
Around the house the flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone
From holly and cotoneaster
Around the house. The flakes fly!—faster
Shutting indoors that crumb-outcaster
We used to see upon the lawn
Around the house. The flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone!
Thomas Hardy. Selected Poetry, OUP, 1994.
Winter
Clouded with snow
The cold winds blow,
And shrill on leafless bough
The robin with its burning breast
Alone sings now.
The rayless sun,
The day’s journey done,
Sheds its last ebbing light
In fields in leagues of beauty spread
Unearthly white.
Thick draws the dark, and spark by spark
The frost-fires kindle, and soon
Over the sea of frozen foam
Floats the white moon.
Walter de la mare. The Oxford Book of Modern Verse, OUP 1936.
Days Getting Longer
Haven’t you noticed the days
somehow keep getting longer?
From “Hummingbird”, a 1973 song by Seals and Crofts.
If you do not step out the same doorway
at the same clock time every afternoon
or if there is long darkness in your soul
it may take you a while to spot this change
that happens with Earth’s tilt, that at a time
that was pitch dark,light lingers, seen or not,
by aggregate seconds longer these days,
for believers ånd scoffers alike
as they head toward homes, following clocks.
Pearly cloud-strips outline trees, wires, geese
in January (southbound? north?). Sprouts come—
first pairs of millimeter-sized green dots,
even if we are making our extinction.
Yet ponderous Earth takes its sweet time to warm,
permitting February’s killer frosts,
but come March, we may still hope tulip buds
pop above seeds, worms, and eggs of lizzards,
heralding kite flights, despite rare blizzards.
Chris Edwards.
The Grace of Winter’s Parting
Snowed in now for three days
and maybe more before the thaw.
How good it feels for the mind to laze,
to cease willing, to hear time stilling.
Now, my soul, drift your gaze
out over clouds, the gray shrouds
that cover the hill where the bony tree prays,
black limbs bent low in the coiling cold.
But there! See! a green blush
of quickening grace,
There, mid those stark shadows
in the shifting hollows!
There, where the winds swirl
the snow like the finest lace!
And there, look! A snowdrop slips at last
from earth’s melting lip.
Linda Ankrah-Dove
Snow-flakes
Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.
Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.
This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow