Lines for winter

Hello friends, studies show the third week of January is the most depressing week of the year. The holiday bills come flooding in, the news echoes the threat of a snow-and-ice event this weekend, and the sun still sets darkly by 7 o’clock. Is there pleasure in giving in to this season of discomfort? Pulling the covers over our head, we can allow ourselves to dream that even a winter storm will fade away and be replaced by the first flower of Spring. In the meantime, here is a poem with some seasonal thoughts by 1990 Poet Laureate of the U.S, Mark Strand. Thanks, Gene

 

Lines for Winter  (Mark Strand)

 

Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself—
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon’s gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.