29 November 2009

Mark Strand

Another of my 1 cent finds on Amazon. This poem is one of my favorites:
Lines for Winter
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.


This point of the year, when November flows into December and winter begins in earnest, is always somewhat hard for me. It's funny, I associate it with the change in the air that comes with the change of the seasons, but that's obviously not the case because the first week of December in Ohio is vastly different, temperature and humidity and wind-wise than the first week of December in Alabama. I almost hoped it would be a little easier when I moved down here. But I guess the calendar is too entrained in my head, and the clinging sadness still comes. It also goes, in time, and that is something to be grateful for.

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