“Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.”
Victor Hugo
On my morning school runs with my daughters during the recent cold snap, the Buckinghamshire countryside was resplendent like an Impressionist winter painting.
Some days the frozen ground was white and glittering with sun lit frost. A piercing blue sky lifted our melancholy thoughts at how cold and early it was, the multitude of roadworks and congestion we faced, and what looming exams my daughter had not done enough revision for.
Other days a low lying mist revealed an-other worldly beauty, a layered spectral effect, and the hidden blurry sun seemed like it would never burn it away.
I pointed out the scenic delights to my daughters, who glanced up from their digital worlds to briefly agree, before resuming in monosyllabic conversation. Being teenagers, they tend to find mornings most disagreeable!
As I drove home across country to avoid huge traffic tailbacks I saw a Red kite sitting on a hefty low branch which hung out as I drove under it. He sat serene and regal, seemingly resigned to the fact that he would not see accurately through the white haze from on high.
Thanks to many years of dedicated conservation work, Red kites are now ubiquitous across the Chilterns and we often see them soaring over our back garden.
They truly are the kings of the skies in this area.
The romantic in me began to accumulate words and thoughts, as the ghostly and sublime scenery captured my imagination. They eventually coalesced into a short poem…
It reminded me that even in perceived difficult conditions there is always something to be grateful for.
Thankfully winter will soon give way to spring, but in the growing power of winter’s limited light, I felt compelled to appreciate its role in the seasons of life, as well as nature.
Winter’s Light
Winter’s cruel chill permeates air and bone
Hibernation in Nature’s DNA, tugging at souls
A warm sanctuary emanates from home,
But in a shrivelled landscape life still knows
The secret sparks hidden within; take a breath,
There can be no new life before a death.
Winter’s light bathes the bleak land in bliss,
A comforting, gentle magnificence
Soft rays illuminate hearts out of darkness,
Sustaining hope, uplifting strained sentience
O’ wondrous star, casting a shimmering veil
A mysterious, misty pastel of beauty pale.
My soul craves your parsimonious warmth,
Though scant in hours spent, before
Dipping below a horizon to transform
Day to night; a presence I adore,
Devoid of summer’s searing harshness,
A glaring paradox of penury in largesse.
Beguiling winter’s light falls short of need,
A touch too far from desire’s reach,
Tantalising a burgeoning diaspora of seed
A spiritual force of patience to teach
You radiate your ethereal impermanence,
Precious succour, imbibed from winter’s firmament.
Virginia Burges
“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.”
We woke to thick flakes of snow falling on Sunday morning, and a white layer soon started to cover everything.
Winter Snow in Louveciennes by Camille Pissarro c. 1872
By the time I had got my act together the snow had turned to freezing rain and the dim light was fading further under a heavy blanket of cloud. Still, I felt the need to suffuse my stale blood with fresh air, clear my mind and stimulate my muscles, no matter the rather unappealing prospect the environment was making it.
It’s amazing how even on the coldest and dullest of days there is inspiration for a muse – if she looks for it.
The Road From Versailles to Saint Germain by Camille Pissarro
Winter can be a tough time: reality sets in alongside the Christmas credit card bills, piling on worry with the extra woolly layers and the battling of virulent, seasonal germs, whilst rousing sluggish motivation.
Even Tchaikovsky agrees we should be warm and snug in January! Mind you, I’m sure Russian winters must be way more brutal than English ones. By the Fireside is the title of January from his 12 pieces of The Seasons, Opus 37. Richter reflects his sentiments on the ivories:
The days are short days and the nights, long. Everything seems to be focused inward.
It’s like we are curled up in a metaphorical fetal position, taking comfort from an enclosed, but secretly nourishing dark space, all growth shielded from view.
Garden Under Snow by Paul Gaugin c. 1879
We dig deep, perhaps drawing on inner reserves to see us through this forlorn time. Nature too, is hunkering down, despite her wintry displays. It seems to me that the stark scenery and empty trees are a sign of mother nature baring her soul to us, her naked branches giving us a sign that we too will flourish again.
Already I have noticed the days are drawing out in small increments.
All traces of snow were gone today. The sky was blue and the sun hovered like a low, bright disc, surely brightening all ragged spirits.
Effect of Snow at Argenteuil by Alfred Sisley
Winter certainly has its unique charms, when everything is stripped back and thrown into sharp relief, but they remain so because of their temporary time span. That is indeed, the magic of all the four seasons.
A Winter’s Walk
Trees and birds are silent while relentless rain holds court,
A rhythmic, yet random patting against my hood, hypnotising,
Lazy lungs expand with chilly, desolate air, as breath is caught
Coalescing with mist, hot and swirling: my efforts rising,
“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my sunset sky.” ~ Rabindranath Tagore, (Stray Birds)
This is going to be a quintessentially English kind of post. Why? Because I’m talking about the weather, and for once, I’m not moaning about it! We Brits are not used to this kind of heat!
As I was sunbathing during Sunday’s glorious, baking hot afternoon, I watched the sun’s rays fan out spectacularly around a solitary cumulus nimbus cloud above me, and felt compelled to capture this astral scene in real time.
I took nine photographs as this huge cloud (my cloud 9), shrouded the blazing sun and then slowly broke up under the onslaught of a sweltering June heat wave. I was grateful to that cloud, without it I would have burnt to a crisp!
If I were an artist I probably would have painted it, but words came instead. My observations have been sublimated into a stream of consciousness, free-verse poem.
In that respect you could say clouds are the ushers of zen as well as the providers of shade…
“Clouds on clouds, in volumes driven,
Curtain round the vault of heaven.” ~ Thomas Love Peacock
Contemplating Cumulus Clouds
My eyes crinkle at the contrast of silver-lining
Against foreboding, grey cotton sitting above me,
Enveloping every ounce of moisture in the air;
A luminous outline from the sun’s insistent rays,
This incandescent string of pure, bright light.
Illuminating my retina from behind the shadows,
As if nature is saying, there is good within the gloom;
I want to reach up and touch its rounded edges,
Grasp it’s elusive, fleecy form, behold for eternity,
But it is changing with every passing moment.
Life giving rays are only temporarily hidden,
Earth’s star, determined to dissolve suspended droplets
Scorching beams will once again permeate the ground,
Bathing all living things in its glowing reach,
Imperceptible breeze, to break up stifling humidity.
As I watch candy-like white wisps breaking away,
The puffy edges are swirling in constant motion,
Moving to form anther cloud, or simply evaporate,
Demonstrating the eternal flow of the universe…
How all primordial ingredients are reused, recycled.
Cumulo – these Latin piles of shaded air,
Resplendent swells of watery weather,
Floating purposefully or aimlessly, gathering or fleeing
Deliberate, or speeding; depending on the wind,
Patchwork ceiling for humans, lift for soaring birds.
We may frown and fret at an abundance of nimbus,
Bemoaning their frequent outbursts of precipitation!
Today cumulus shades me from the searing heat,
Another day they will bestow liquid on parched earth
Is God decorating the sky, with an ever-changing palette?
Meteorological material; from mysterious misty layers,
To floating pale tufts, or brooding, bulging monsters,
Swollen and violent with rain, blocking out the sun;
Ephemeral fluid shapes: never forever, and never the same…
Scarce or plentiful; permeating and patrolling the skies.
Cloud 9!
“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.” ~ John Lubbock (The Use Of Life)
rhap.so.dy in words 