So mostly I don't get poetry.....or rather it doesn't "get" me. But I've come to think of it like coffee, or dark beer or tight jeans. Takes some getting used to before I'm entirely swept away.
And so it was with this poem....I had to TASTE it's dark aroma several times before I surrendered to it's charm. I have LOVED this winter...cold and dark and empty, the trees naked and cruel. Soon enough this winter will give way to the early signs of hope. But until then, here's to enjoying the necessary dark, whether it be Guatamalan Antigua, Guinness or Campion, with the silent hope of Spring.

Now Winter Nights Enlarge by Thomas Campion

Now winter nights enlarge
This number of their hours;
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze
And cups o'erflow with wine;
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine!
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall wait on honey love
While youthful revels, masques, and Courtly sights
Sleep's leaden spells remove.

This time doth well dispense
With lovers' long discourse;
Much speech hath some defence,
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well;
Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.
The summer hath his joys,
And winter his delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys,
They shorten tedious nights.

Lenten Parade

I always am somewhat enamored when I see them. Their strong and upright necks easily balance their sometimes jerky, always inquisitive beaky movements. Most-times they catch my eye whilst they glide overhead. Or sometimes I'm graced with their presence while I'm trying to catch up with myself at the river's edge. But not today. Today they walked right out in front of my car as I was heading strongly over the windy road.....sorta like they were in a well-orchestrated Ash Wednesday parade. Gooses, even the really silly ones, would probably not think of parade and Lent in the same sentence. Lent is really not that much of a parade sorta season what with the ashes and fasting and all that dust to dust talk. So, I put my ear to the ground.....I listen......if they are not here to salute Lent......what have they wandered out into this busy, fast-paced life of mine to tell me? It's then that I remember Mary Oliver and the Wild Geese poem that I read to my daughter every day whilst yet and still she was inside of me. You know the one, it relieves us of the notion of goodness being completely good for us. The first line relaxes the strident superego within. And then shameslessly. she recommends allowing ourselves to move out from the facade and into authenticity by allowing the "soft animal to Love what it Loves". Suddenly I got it.... the Lenten parade.....the celebration of vulnerability and the encouragement to open to Love. Breathing deeply does not always go along with holding up traffic but occasionally it can. I rolled down the window, snapped a pic of the geese, thanked them deeply for the foreshadowing and moved through this Ash Wednesday a little softer and a little more open and a little more thankful for not so silly gooses who know that anytime, and maybe even especially Lent, is a good time for a parade.