Miswinter by Jonathon Penny
by Jonathon | 1.11.12
I’ve had enough of deserts,
Wish to shed my summer clothes
And wear my long-forgotten woolen, warming winter robes.
Want mittened hands, and beating
Round my body in the cold
To ward off frost, to hover over heat and hearth and coals.
Want stockinged feet, and booted,
Want the crunch and whine of snow,
Want the red-cheeked strain of shoveling a passage to the road.
Want to warm the air with breathing,
Breathe the hale and hearty frost,
Want the windblown grace and loss of winter’s cradle, and its cross.
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For more from Jonathon Penny, go here.
January 11th, 2012 at 11:14 am
Cool words make warm thought. Your “for more…go here” isn’t working.
January 11th, 2012 at 11:46 am
Thanks, Shannon. Fixed now.
January 11th, 2012 at 6:26 pm
This prompts memories of walking to school in Tucson in January and reaching to button my sweater not because I was cold but because I had an old and irresistible habit of buttoning my sweater in January. To my surprise, I discovered that I missed winter, too. I’m missing it this year, as well, though I’m living in what’s supposed to be high desert, which usually gets snow on its cacti. Unseasonably un-cold.
January 11th, 2012 at 8:20 pm
Oh, to wear a jacket! Thanks for the reminiscence.
There’s something about this one that worries me a little: a tickling notion that it’s too much like too much else, but I can’t nail it down. Anyway, there are lines I like, and it’s alliterative in the right places, I think.
Thanks for reading.
January 23rd, 2012 at 10:26 am
We have gone from fairly frigid winters to completely howling, snow-piled winters. I’ve adjusted just in time for a year of absolutely no snow. Well, very little. My dreamed of sled-hill in the backyard will, I think, this year be a dream only :(
Funny how the grass is always greener, too. I was ready to get out of freezing weather and into the more temperate climate of my hometown this Christmas.
January 23rd, 2012 at 10:26 am
Should clarify–we moved this year (thus, the change in winters).