XXXII

Don January 30th, 2009

XXXII 

Wordsworth wrote an endless poem in blank verse on” the growth of a poet’s mind.”  I shall attempt a more modest feat for a more distracted age: a blog, “Things which a Lifetime of Trying to Be a Poet has Taught Me.”

            Robert Frost was not the only poet to notice the strange and suggestive parallels between the “inner weather” of the human soul and the “outer weather” that tossed the head of his window tree.  Being interested in weather is a huge part of being attentive to nature.  It is beautiful (if sometimes terrible) in its own right and reflects something back to us of our own inner life as well.  Here are two brief impressions from the winter of 1972-3.

 DECEMBER 4, 1972 

Freezing rain,

Tree’s bane,

Can you hear it falling?

Coming down

With the sound

Of the cracking

And the snapping

Of the pain

In the branches

Of the trees.

 DECEMBER 6, 1972 

See fast, how the snowflakes floating fly,

With a tumble-down, wind-whipped hurry, pass by,

Blown from their homes in the sullen sky,

Seeking new nests in the grass.

Donald T. Williams, PhD

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