Advent Calendar Day 9: Trees in Winter

"Bare branches in winter are a form of writing..." 

~ Billy Collins 'Winter Syntax'

Watch as the winter trees display their, as Alice Oswald calls them, 'wishbone' selves.  

Winter Trees - William Carlos Williams

All the complicated details

of the attiring and

the disattiring are completed!

A liquid moon

moves gently among

the long branches.

Thus having prepared their buds

against a sure winter

the wise trees

stand sleeping in the cold.

Advent Calendar Day 8: Annunciation

'The Annunciation' by John William Waterhouse, 1914

 

 

Annunciation - Denise Levertov

We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,
almost always a lectern, a book; always
the tall lily.

       Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,
the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,
whom she acknowledges, a guest.

But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions
courage.

       The engendering Spirit
did not enter her without consent.

         God waited.

She was free
to accept or to refuse, choice
integral to humanness.

Aren’t there annunciations
of one sort or another
in most lives?

         Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.

More often
those moments
      when roads of light and storm
      open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from

in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.
                                 God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.

She had been a child who played, ate, slept
like any other child–but unlike others,
wept only for pity, laughed
in joy not triumph.
Compassion and intelligence
fused in her, indivisible.

Called to a destiny more momentous
than any in all of Time,
she did not quail,

  only asked

a simple, ‘How can this be?’
and gravely, courteously,
took to heart the angel’s reply,
the astounding ministry she was offered:

to bear in her womb
Infinite weight and lightness; to carry
in hidden, finite inwardness,
nine months of Eternity; to contain
in slender vase of being,
the sum of power–
in narrow flesh,
the sum of light.

                     Then bring to birth,
push out into air, a Man-child
needing, like any other,
milk and love–

but who was God.

This was the moment no one speaks of,

when she could still refuse.

A breath unbreathed,

                                Spirit,

                                          suspended,

                                                            waiting.

    

She did not cry, ‘I cannot. I am not worthy,’

Nor, ‘I have not the strength.’

She did not submit with gritted teeth,

                                                       raging, coerced.

Bravest of all humans,

                                  consent illumined her.

The room filled with its light,

the lily glowed in it,

                               and the iridescent wings.

Consent,

              courage unparalleled,

opened her utterly.

Advent Calendar Day 7: Snowflakes

 

"Out of the bosom of the Air,

      Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,

      Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

            Silent, and soft, and slow

            Descends the snow." 

 

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

 

"They say that every snowflake is different. If that were true, how could the world go on? How could we ever get up off our knees? How could we ever recover from the wonder of it?"

~ Jeanette Winterson

"Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others." 

~ Wilson Bentley

 

Aren't snowflakes truly things of wonder? Check out this slideshow

 

 

Literary Advent Calenar Day 6: Hello Winter

Winter is the season of solitude, the season of wisdom and inner growth.
 

Relearning Winter - Mark Svenfold

Hello Winter, hello flanneled
blanket of clouds, clouds
fueled by more clouds, hello again.

Hello afternoons,
off to the west, that silver
of sunset, rust-colored
and gone too soon.

And night (I admit to a short memory)
you climb back in with chilly fingers
and clocks, and there is no refusal:
ice cracks the water main, the garden hose
stiffens, the bladed leaves of the rhododendron
shine in the fog of a huge moon.

And rain, street lacquer,
oily puddles and spinning rubber,
mist of angels on the head of a pin,
hello,

and snow, upside-down cake of clouds,
white, freon scent, you build
even as you empty the world of texture—
hello to this new relief,
this new solitude now upon us,
upon which we feed.

Literary Advent Calendar Day 5: December

'December' - Norah Jones

Literary Advent Calendar Day 4: Trees in Winter

Art by Erika Pochybova-Johnson

"And don't think the garden loses its ecstasy in winter. It's quiet, but the roots down there are riotous." 

~ Rumi

Literary Advent Calendar Day 3: Starlings

' I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings...'

In this season of waiting and winter, there are many beautiful things... 


Starlings in Winter - Mary Oliver

Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly

they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can't imagine

how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing, 

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard. I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

Literary Advent Calendar: Day 2 The Wonder

Whatever way you look at it, the Christmas season is a season of wonder. 

The wonder of Christ being born, the wonder of one year ending and another beginning, the wonder of childhood, of generosity, of genuine heartwarming goodwill.

What this poem touches on so well I think is our longing at this time of year to return to that innocent and wondrous state of childhood, all that 'spirit-shocking wonder,' which allows us to see again 'the newness that was in every stale thing'. And to do this, we must leave overindulgence behind and focus on the simplicity of things, the 'heartbreaking strangeness...wherever life pours ordinary plenty'. 

Advent - Patrick Kavanagh

We have tested and tasted too much, lover-
Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.
But here in the Advent-darkened room
Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea
Of penance will charm back the luxury
Of a child's soul, we'll return to Doom
The knowledge we stole but could not use.

And the newness that was in every stale thing
When we looked at it as children: the spirit-shocking
Wonder in a black slanting Ulster hill
Or the prophetic astonishment in the tedious talking
Of an old fool will awake for us and bring
You and me to the yard gate to watch the whins
And the bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables where Time begins.

O after Christmas we'll have no need to go searching
For the difference that sets an old phrase burning-
We'll hear it in the whispered argument of a churning
Or in the streets where the village boys are lurching.
And we'll hear it among decent men too
Who barrow dung in gardens under trees,
Wherever life pours ordinary plenty.
Won't we be rich, my love and I, and
God we shall not ask for reason's payment,
The why of heart-breaking strangeness in dreeping hedges
Nor analyse God's breath in common statement.
We have thrown into the dust-bin the clay-minted wages
Of pleasure, knowledge and the conscious hour-
And Christ comes with a January flower.

Literary Advent Calendar: Day 1

Well I searched everywhere for such a thing as a 'Literary Advent Calendar' - but no, seems there is no such physical thing. So I'm following the lead of the fabulous Book Riot website and making my own digital one, here. 

Join me for a daily dose of seasonally inspired poetry, literature, music or musing over the next month.

Suggestions warmly welcomed!


Siobhán


Day 1: 
Who better to kick off the seasonal pageant of poetry than Carol Ann Duffy, who as well as being Poet Laureate of Britain is also a sort of Poet Laureate of Christmas, with her many Christmas poem projects. Here she is with her sombre but beautiful take on Advent:


Advent - Carol Ann Duffy

One last silvered leaf fails to fall
from its tree.  A hard year’s winter
has frozen your voice.
                           You would still rejoice
if you could sing, in your listening church -
where candles thrill to their endings,
light’s brave lovers - gold carols
this dark Advent;
                     the hurt heart hearkening:
Lo! He comes with clouds descending.
But there is the descant moon
over our scarred world, its cold, pure breve,
and you will sing to your child
                                   on Christmas Eve.

Day 28: Transformation

Today's theme is...transformation. For some reason, transformation always makes me think of...metamorphosis, alchemy. 

Especially how love can be alchemy and gild everything gold...

'The Alchemy Between Us' ~ Young Galaxy

 And how it can trigger a metamorphosis, a 'soul shift' like Sylvia Plath talks of here:

Love Letter - Sylvia Plath

Not easy to state the change you made.
If I'm alive now, then I was dead,
Though, like a stone, unbothered by it,
Staying put according to habit.
You didn't just tow me an inch, no-
Nor leave me to set my small bald eye
Skyward again, without hope, of course,
Of apprehending blueness, or stars.

That wasn't it. I slept, say: a snake
Masked among black rocks as a black rock
In the white hiatus of winter-
Like my neighbors, taking no pleasure
In the million perfectly-chisled
Cheeks alighting each moment to melt
My cheeks of basalt. They turned to tears,
Angels weeping over dull natures,
But didn't convince me. Those tears froze.
Each dead head had a visor of ice.

And I slept on like a bent finger.
The first thing I was was sheer air
And the locked drops rising in dew
Limpid as spirits. Many stones lay
Dense and expressionless round about.
I didn't know what to make of it.
I shone, mice-scaled, and unfolded
To pour myself out like a fluid
Among bird feet and the stems of plants.
I wasn't fooled. I knew you at once.

Tree and stone glittered, without shadows.
My finger-length grew lucent as glass.
I started to bud like a March twig:
An arm and a leg, and arm, a leg.
From stone to cloud, so I ascended.
Now I resemble a sort of god
Floating through the air in my soul-shift
Pure as a pane of ice. It's a gift.

But the thing I associate most with transformation is vision. How poetry, for example transforms vision. To most of us, a something so ordinary and simple as say a stone, is just that, a stone. But to a poet, imagination transforms it into a thing of wonder:

Stone - Ogden Nash

Go inside a stone
That would be my way.
Let somebody else become a dove
Or gnash with a tiger's tooth.
I am happy to be a stone.

From the outside the stone is a riddle:
No one knows how to answer it.
Yet within, it must be cool and quiet
Even though a cow steps on it full weight,
Even though a child throws it in a river;
The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed
To the river bottom
Where the fishes come to knock on it
And listen.

I have seen sparks fly out
When two stones are rubbed,
So perhaps it is not dark inside after all;
Perhaps there is a moon shining
From somewhere, as though behind a hill—
Just enough light to make out
The strange writings, the star-charts
On the inner walls.  

***