The weather here has been awful — it finally snowed on Thursday night, but the beautiful snow didn’t last. Since then we have had gray, dreary days of rain and sleet that are washing the snow away. I’ve kept busy drinking tea and trying to tame the chaos in my studio. While cleaning, I came across a notebook of poems I wrote in ’96:
* * *
gray becomes me
i can blend into the wool
of endless winter afternoons
books, tea, and the promise
of stillness
* * *
Winter mornings come crisp
Like linens fresh from the wash
Clean smell and sharp lines
Severe and comforting
Repeated every washday
Without fail
For more poems, head to the Poetry Friday Roundup hosted by Tara at A Teaching Life.
Both poems bring forth those winter days. I like the first ‘gray becomes me’. Although we have much sun in Colorado, today is gray and cold. There are times I wish we did have rain because we have so little. Thanks for the capturing of these days where we want only a cup of tea and a wool sweater!
I wrote these when I lived in New Hampshire and winter was long, cold, and gray.
Lovely poems, Katya! Nice to find a new site and meet a new blogger :).
What evocative images, Katya! I love that they are still “crisp” and “fresh” after many years. Also love that “gray becomes me” can be interpreted in more than one way – it feels like a heavy fog.
I am in cleaning mode, too! Glad you found some poems to share. I can relate to the first one, and I like the original comparison of winter to washday in the second.
I could live in that first poem, and its first line makes me smile each time I reread. I like the second poem, too, but am not feeling wintery linen today as snow seems on a crusade.
When I wrote that first poem, I could never have imagined how much I would value stillness 15 years later.
With two young boys, stillness is rare in my house.
Yes, we have a gray day today and I am clutching my teacup! I love how you pulled these gems out just in time for sharing today. Cheers!
Hi Katya, like Linda, i love the first poem:
“gray becomes me
i can blend into the wool
of endless winter afternoons
books, tea, and the promise
of stillness”
– seems like I have memorized your poem to heart. While I did enjoy my short interlude with snow a year ago, I don’t think I can stand gray sun-less days, I crave for sunshine all the time, and I feel grief creeping into me with just an endless smog of grays and seeming-stillness.
*sending you fiery sunrises across the miles*
Wow, the second I read that first line of “gray becomes me” I thought of New Hampshire and the east coast in general — then I saw your comment that you were living in NH when you wrote it. Weird! Obviously you really captured the essence of a New England winter by the ocean. Evocative, melancholic, and lovely all at once, a setting that also reminded me of an old book by Alice Koller called “An Unknown Woman.” So glad I joined Poetry Friday – am loving finding all you wonderful writers! (And thanks for stopping by my blog, too.) :)
Good morning Katya,
One of my favorite things about Poetry Friday is the opportunity to meet lots of new friends on line. My word for the year is “savor” and I’m collecting poems and quotes that match that theme. I will definitely add your two winter poems to my collection. Hope you got to enjoy a hot dog with spicy mustard yesterday! Blessings… Carol
I like these! Thanks for sharing them. I like the juxtaposition of “severe” and “comforting.”
“the wool
of endless winter afternoons”
So true of winter in Ohio, too!
Hi Katya, finally made it over (so MANY participants in Poetry Friday!). Great finds. Sadly, when I look at my own notebooks from ’96, the only eloquence that I see are memorized Radiohead lyrics scribbled between pages of my own prehistoric* ramblings.
*pre·his·tor·ic/ˌprē(h)iˈstôrik/Adjective: 1.Of, relating to, or denoting the period before written records.
2.Very old, primitive, or out of date.
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