Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Untitled

Not sure what to title a post that only contains a poem I read on another blog and loved so much I wanted to share it here.

The Snow Man
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Wallace Stevens (1923)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is profound truth in this poem. As much as I hate winter...I have stood outside in a silent landscape covered in white...and been in awe of the simple, beautiful artistry of nature...and reminded of how little we are in it all.

Unknown said...

There are other moments like that. For me, it's standing out in a truly dark night and seeing the sky lit by the thousands of dangling stars with the smear of the Milky Way from one horizon to the other. And one feels small. But it looks like home.

Ree said...

Beautiful. And very apropos for us right now, eh?