The
Certainty of Spring
Nov 9 2014
I would have been as fearful
as the world grew dark.
As winter's night
relentlessly strangled the light,
its great black hand
steadily tightening.
Before artificial light
warmed our thin abodes,
spilling out
into the vast blackness
of brooding snow.
The hard gleam
of winter's bone
stripped clean of flesh.
I would have been as fearful
as the world grew dark.
As winter's night
relentlessly strangled the light,
its great black hand
steadily tightening.
Before artificial light
warmed our thin abodes,
spilling out
into the vast blackness
of brooding snow.
The hard gleam
of winter's bone
stripped clean of flesh.
Before we knew
about planets and stars,
their clockwork wheelings, inexhaustible springs,
about planets and stars,
their clockwork wheelings, inexhaustible springs,
certain
the season will turn.
When the day lengthens
and light escapes,
its beating heart
imperceptibly quickening.
and light escapes,
its beating heart
imperceptibly quickening.
Before enlightenment,
when the illusion we’re safe
had us turning away
from the cold.
As if the stars and the planets
were not their own,
magnificently indifferent
and uncontrollable.
Huddling around
hearth and home,
counting down to light.
when the illusion we’re safe
had us turning away
from the cold.
As if the stars and the planets
were not their own,
magnificently indifferent
and uncontrollable.
Huddling around
hearth and home,
counting down to light.
A bit of a different take on the longest night of the year,
towards which I can feel us hurtling. It's a poem about hubris and modernity,
and I think attempts to sympathetically inhabit the world view of our
not-so-ancient forbears.
It's the 4th poem in a row I've written about snow. I'm not thrilled about this. I keep trying to write a prose poem: something that reads in a more conversational way, seems less staccato and structure and lean. And I keep trying to write something more narrative, personal, emotional, rather than another seasonal poem. But as I've said before, writing often feels like channelling: as if I were simply a stenographer, taking down what comes.
Once I had the image of the vice-like hand closing off the light, I was emboldened to work the anatomical metaphor. Perhaps worked it too hard: I wonder if the "winter bone" and the "beating heart" might come off as strained, or shoe-horned in. Even "turning away" and huddling around", which loosely follow.
I repeatedly assert that I despise adverbs; yet I've used 4 of them here (relentlessly, steadily, imperceptibly, and magnificently). The danger of adverbs is that they explicitly say what's already implied, which is both redundant and patronizing. In my defence, I think my choices here are powerful and descriptive: the poem would be much thinner and weaker without them.
There was a persistent image in the back of my mind that I think informed everything I wrote here: of a small wood-framed shack in a vast expanse of snow in the steely black of night. It's seen from a distance. Feeble yellow light is leaking out. Perhaps a single strand of smoke curls up from its chimney. The feeling this conveyed was of smallness, vulnerability, isolation. I think you can see this in the image of "huddling"; in the turning inward to light and its illusion of safety.
I would have loved "Winter's Bone" as the title; but it's already been taken by the Academy Award-winning movie (or if not the movie itself, then its leading lady). Nevertheless, "The Certainty of Spring" gets closer to the theme: the presumption of certainty; the fear that it's not certain at all.
It's the 4th poem in a row I've written about snow. I'm not thrilled about this. I keep trying to write a prose poem: something that reads in a more conversational way, seems less staccato and structure and lean. And I keep trying to write something more narrative, personal, emotional, rather than another seasonal poem. But as I've said before, writing often feels like channelling: as if I were simply a stenographer, taking down what comes.
Once I had the image of the vice-like hand closing off the light, I was emboldened to work the anatomical metaphor. Perhaps worked it too hard: I wonder if the "winter bone" and the "beating heart" might come off as strained, or shoe-horned in. Even "turning away" and huddling around", which loosely follow.
I repeatedly assert that I despise adverbs; yet I've used 4 of them here (relentlessly, steadily, imperceptibly, and magnificently). The danger of adverbs is that they explicitly say what's already implied, which is both redundant and patronizing. In my defence, I think my choices here are powerful and descriptive: the poem would be much thinner and weaker without them.
There was a persistent image in the back of my mind that I think informed everything I wrote here: of a small wood-framed shack in a vast expanse of snow in the steely black of night. It's seen from a distance. Feeble yellow light is leaking out. Perhaps a single strand of smoke curls up from its chimney. The feeling this conveyed was of smallness, vulnerability, isolation. I think you can see this in the image of "huddling"; in the turning inward to light and its illusion of safety.
I would have loved "Winter's Bone" as the title; but it's already been taken by the Academy Award-winning movie (or if not the movie itself, then its leading lady). Nevertheless, "The Certainty of Spring" gets closer to the theme: the presumption of certainty; the fear that it's not certain at all.
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