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Slogging Through Winter, Awaiting The Spring

Slogging Through Winter, Awaiting The Spring

Last updated on: February 13, 2016 at 5:15 pm by Tom Zampino

Slogging Through Winter, Awaiting The Spring 2016-02-13T17:15:42-05:00 Tom Zampino

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Lent can be a extraordinary time for introspection; Easter a breathtaking time for change.

But it’s not always easy, is it?

From where I write today, the weather is brutally cold, and my spirit flagging from – for me – unusual mental and physical exertions that threaten to totally consume.

Exhaustion is lurking just around the corner, watching, waiting to pounce.

So I take some needed time to rest.

I take comfort in the embrace of friends – even those whose presence is known only through the small glass screen of virtual reality.

I read. I sit. I think. I write.

I remain silent, muted as I let the stillness finally overtake.

And my thoughts, naturally, turn to the spring ahead – though still so distant – and to the cycle of renewal to be found waiting there.

The early buds. The return of song.

The scent of grass and trees and leaves and dirt.

I felt moved to record this moment in words.

But my own were inadequate, so I turned to another.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson here captures the mood and the images perfectly.

Read, enjoy, and share!

Early Spring

Once more the Heavenly Power
Makes all things new,
And domes the red-plow’d hills
With loving blue;
The blackbirds have their wills,
The throstles too.

Opens a door in heaven;
From skies of glass
A Jacob’s ladder falls
On greening grass,
And o’er the mountain-walls
Young angels pass.

Before them fleets the shower,
And burst the buds,
And shine the level lands,
And flash the floods;
The stars are from their hands
Flung thro’ the woods,

The woods with living airs
How softly fann’d,
Light airs from where the deep,
All down the sand,
Is breathing in his sleep,
Heard by the land.

O, follow, leaping blood,
The season’s lure!
O heart, look down and up
Serene, secure,
Warm as the crocus cup,
Like snowdrops, pure!

Past, Future glimpse and fade
Thro’ some slight spell,
A gleam from yonder vale,
Some far blue fell,
And sympathies, how frail,
In sound and smell!

Till at thy chuckled note,
Thou twinkling bird,
The fairy fancies range,
And, lightly stirr’d,
Ring little bells of change
From word to word.

For now the Heavenly Power
Makes all things new,
And thaws the cold, and fills
The flower with dew;
The blackbirds have their wills,
The poets too.

Peace

Image Credit: Pixabay.com

Poem Credit: Wikisource.org, Public Domain, 1883. Cited Source Disclaimer: This work was published before January 1, 1923, and is in the pubic domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago. Creative Commons License here.

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