Monday Morning Wake-Up Call (February 11th)

The moon is out. The ice is gone. Patches of white
lounge on the wet meadow. Moonlit darkness at 6 a.m.

Again from the porch these blue mornings I hear an eagle’s cries
like God is out across the bay rubbing two mineral sheets together
slowly, with great pressure.

A single creature’s voice—or just the loudest one.
Others speak with eyes: they watch—
the frogs and beetles, sleepy bats, ones I can’t see.
Their watching is their own stamp on the world…

I steel myself for the day.

~ Nellie Bridge, from “February 11″ from Echotheo Review, July 18, 2011


Notes: Poem from 3 Quarks Daily. Winter Moon photo in Norway by Maren Fredagsvik

february has been a small month of small sentences and thoughts

 bird-long-hair-whimsical
february has been a small month of small sentences and thoughts.
i manage to write a line or two each day.

from the first day: it has just turned february, the month when the days can’t decide what to do.  an in betweener for us – a fire lit this morning, not needed by the weekend.  a week later: the sky goes lavender on its way to dark. a week into february with open doors and a small fire in the heater.  a week after that, i squoosh a few days into this: monday:  the wind is singing a chilly song of february, slinging small stones and twigs and bits of leaves against the doors and windows.  the glass creaks in protest and surrender, the cat twitches in her sleep, dreams disturbed almost to waking. the morning birds are silent. thursday: we are warm.  flipflops, heaters off, windows open.  the night sky clear.  jingle bell cat a white presence in the darkness.  i can’t sleep and can’t read.

~ d smith kaich jones, february in bits and pieces


Photograph: gabriel isak via (Mennyfox55)

Freeze, thaw, repeat — the cycle expands in the mind to unbearable infinities

parka-hood-winter-cold

NY Times – The Winter Has Gotten Old:

Then I’m laying out my winter clothes and wishing I was gone, going home, where the New York City winters aren’t bleeding me.” So goes the Simon and Garfunkel song, buried deep in the memory, an oldie that seems to have been around for as long as this old winter has.

And long it has been. Long stretches of painfully frigid weather, brief respites, then more snow, ice and freezing rain. Freeze, thaw, repeat — the cycle xpands in the mind to unbearable infinities, the unyielding sensation of being trapped.

But check the calendar: This week means we are officially in late February, which means March. March means daffodils, which means this all must eventually end.

Until then, we wait, battered and diminished. Winter shrinks the vision, narrows it to the limits of a parka hood. It numbs the heart, dulls the reflexes of graciousness and gratitude as people’s behavior on sidewalks and train platforms shifts to self-preservation. It bends the neck, as the eyes scan for ice, gauging the leapability of slush puddles and the danger of left-turning, nonyielding cabs. Is that filthy, black-edged snowbank crusty enough to slip on, or soft enough to sink into? Will I break my ankle or just soak it? Should I give up now, and die right here? It’s windy. It hurts. I can’t go on.

I’ll go on…

Do be sure to go on.  Read the rest here: ~ The Winter Has Gotten Old


Thank you Susan

Cold stove of 4:00 a.m., black iron

cast-iron-stove

Cold stove of 4:00 a.m., black iron, the lids in place on everyone but me, and down the chimney, through the damper’s pinch, the distant hoo-hoo-hooing of an owl. And soon, among the sticks of kindling in the box of words, the mouselike scritching of my pen.

~ Ted Kooser, February. The Wheeling Year: A Poet’s Field Book


Photo Credit: The Wild Free Spirit

Where’s the Groundhog?

gif,illustration


Image Credit

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