It’s getting frosty here in Toronto. The windows in my hundred-year old house don’t look quite this dramatic, but we’re headed in that direction. Time to pull out the flannel sheets and start wearing socks to bed. Ah, winter.
Here’s a lovely poem from a poet I’d never read before.
Early Frost – by Scott Cairns
This morning the world’s white face reminds us
that life intends to become serious again.
And the same loud birds that all summer long
annoyed us with their high attitudes and chatter
silently line the gibbet of the fence a little stunned,
chastened enough.
They look as if they’re waiting for things
to grow worse, but are watching the house,
as if somewhere in their dim memories
they recall something about this abandoned garden
that could save them.
The neighbor’s dog has also learned to wake
without exaggeration. And the neighbor himself
has made it to his car with less noise, starting
the small engine with a kind of reverence. At the window
his wife witnesses this bleak tableau, blinking
her eyes, silent.
Read the rest here.
(Photo from Muffet’s flickrstream)
Shelf Elf: read, write, rave. 