a winter’s day, after day, after ...

Baking a loaf of kernza sourdough artisan bread on another gray, cloudy January day helps, but not as much as a month’s worth of sunshine and blue skies would. It’s true that drought, wild fire, atmospheric rivers are both emotionally and physically devastating, but our persistent cloudiness makes me feel like I’m being subjected to eternal water torture, drip-drip-drip, and would confess to anything too make it stop, but there’s not even a guard within earshot that I can implore.

a taste of times to come

Photo by J. Harrington

I did get a good whiff of the fragrances from the bulb planter flowers this morning, which made me hope I might live long enough to once again enjoy a real spring day full of wildflowers and sunshine. I bet any wild animals susceptible to seasonal affective disorder are hibernating in a state of torpor. That’s similar to my current condition but, unfortunately, I’m awake, not asleep, although the Better Half might have a different perspective on that.

A hen turkey is again feeding on droppings from the deck bird feeders. I noticed her as I was checking on a load of clothes in the dryer and sneaking another peek at the jonquils and tulips near the west side downstairs window. For a scruffy-looking bird she’s quite handsome; for a handsome bird she’s quite scruffy-looking. I need to remember to dump some sunflower seeds on the snow for her, the cardinals, and squirrels.

Maybe tomorrow I need to take a ride and see if I can find some open, flowing, water and just sit and watch for awhile. Even if everything is frozen over, I’ll feel better for having tried. Beckett’s statement on “fail better” comes to mind, as does the idea that waiting for winter to end in Minnesota is about as useful and hopeful as Waiting for Godot.

The Song of the Happy Shepherd

By William Butler Yeats

The woods of Arcady are dead, 

And over is their antique joy; 

Of old the world on dreaming fed; 

Grey Truth is now her painted toy; 

Yet still she turns her restless head: 

But O, sick children of the world, 

Of all the many changing things 

In dreary dancing past us whirled, 

To the cracked tune that Chronos sings, 

Words alone are certain good. 

Where are now the warring kings, 

Word be-mockers? — By the Rood

Where are now the warring kings? 

An idle word is now their glory, 

By the stammering schoolboy said, 

Reading some entangled story: 

The kings of the old time are dead; 

The wandering earth herself may be 

Only a sudden flaming word, 

In clanging space a moment heard, 

Troubling the endless reverie. 

Then nowise worship dusty deeds, 

Nor seek, for this is also sooth, 

To hunger fiercely after truth, 

Lest all thy toiling only breeds 

New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth 

Saving in thine own heart. Seek, then, 

No learning from the starry men, 

Who follow with the optic glass 

The whirling ways of stars that pass — 

Seek, then, for this is also sooth, 

No word of theirs — the cold star-bane 

Has cloven and rent their hearts in twain, 

And dead is all their human truth. 

Go gather by the humming sea 

Some twisted, echo-harbouring shell,

And to its lips thy story tell, 

And they thy comforters will be, 

Rewarding in melodious guile 

Thy fretful words a little while, 

Till they shall singing fade in ruth 

And die a pearly brotherhood; 

For words alone are certain good: 

Sing, then, for this is also sooth. 

I must be gone: there is a grave 

Where daffodil and lily wave, 

And I would please the hapless faun, 

Buried under the sleepy ground, 

With mirthful songs before the dawn. 

His shouting days with mirth were crowned; 

And still I dream he treads the lawn, 

Walking ghostly in the dew, 

Pierced by my glad singing through, 

My songs of old earth's dreamy youth: 

But ah! she dreams not now; dream thou! 

For fair are poppies on the brow: 

Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.

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