Snow: Richard Wilbur's poem, "Boy at the Window"

Boy at the Window
by Richard Wilbur

Seeing the snowman standing all alone
In the dusk and cold is more than he can bear.
The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare
A night of gnashings and enormous moan.
His tearful sight can hardly reach to where
The pale-faced figure with bitumen eyes
Returns him such a god-forsaken stare
As outcast Adam gave to Paradise.

The man of snow is, nonetheless, content,
Having no wish to go inside and die.
Still, he is moved to see the youngster cry.
Though frozen water is his element,
He melts enough to drop from one soft eye
A trickle of the purest rain, a tear
For the child at the bright pane surrounded by
Such warmth, such light, such love, and so much fear.

From Good Poems selected & Introduced by Garrison Keillor, 2002

Born in 1921, Richard Wilbur grew up in rural NJ, went to Amherst, bummed around the country (46 states) on freight trains & rode in a coal car over the Rockies and served in the army in the Italian campaign in WWII.

To my friends this Valentine's season: a sonnet

My brother Guy Couch's begonia

 

 A Sonnet to my Valentines

T  o celebrate this holiday, I’ll try

O  utlining, crafting English sonnet form.
 

M  y further, harder task will be to tie

Y  et other undertakings to it: warm
 

V  ernacular, like choc-o-late, plus rhyme

A  nd meter (dull iambic, some folks think).

L  a-bor-ious it may be, this winter. But,

E  ach word must serve to build and fill a chink.

N  eglectful, some folks overlook a “turn”

T  he sonnet needs. For now, I’ll turn to snow,

I  de-al during February. Spurn

N  ot cold; delight in its short visit! Oh,

E  lusive muse, Erato–– Valentine,

S  tay with us, love us––snow or not.   Be mine!

 

c 2015 Pat Laster dba lovepat press



Goodbye to another (mostly) warm January

Just a few more weeks till ....... PL

 

From  Connecting Our Houses, 1997

70 degrees

spring fever

in January

 

Published in Haiku Headlines, January, 2006
basking in the sun
shedding one pair of socks...
and then another

From Lighting a Candle, Winter, 2008
Prolonged
rain predicted
this mid January--
El  Nino-warm. How warm? Sparrow
bathing.

From January Gimcracks, 2003
robins
in and out of the pear tree
warm winter morning

a gabby blackbird
disturbing my chaise-lounge nap
warm January

From New Year's Project, 2006
church employee
taking her rest
on Mondays
   warm January sunshine
   perfect for a chaise-lounge nap

From Listen...the snow, 2005
warm January
playing badminton
over the swing set
[written, 1998]

a mild January
three flecks of white
on the spirea
[written 2000, published in Haiku Headlines, 2004]

mid-winter mildness~
first, the snowmen bric-a-brac
now, Valentines
[written, 2004]

c 2015, Pat Laster dba lovepat press

 



January's changing weather - poems

raindrops
sparkle
under
dessicated
beautyberries
[1. 22. '15]

head first
into the brown leaves
its tail twitching
[1.22. '99]

farmland disappears
under floodwaters
and tides
[news: 1.6.'97]

the incessant sound
from a dining-room wall
traced to attic vent
[1. 30. '10]

snowman coffee mug
--no sign of snow so far
this January
[1.23. '12-also true, '15]

"... not bitterly cold."
15 degrees feels bitter
to me
[1.1.'01]

gray streaks of dawn ~
town murdered in its sleep
by a twister
[A. Harter, AD-G, 1.23.'99]

raindrops
in the birdbath--
before my eyes, they turn
into whirling, mesmerizing
circles
[1.11.'15]

Fifty,
sixty degree
temps earlier preclude
any chance of a light snowfall
sticking.
[1.22.'15]

~~~PL dba lovepat press

In Memory of Miller Williams, scientist, poet, father, husband, professor, et al.

Miller Williams, who died on January 1, 2015

 

A poem written in 1999 as an entry in the Poets' Roundtable of Arkansas's Sybil Nash Abrams Award. It didn't place.  In 2004, it won a 3rd Place in the AWC's Rosa Zagnoni Marioni Award. Later that year, it won 3rd Place in Nina Tillery's National Poetry Day award. This is the first publication.

 

As part of an audience with her poetry professor, she accents her Adoro with lines from the Master's poems

 

We sit on his porch

watching the lightning

from yonder Ozark ridge.

 

Thunder rumbles

like the should and oughts

of his father's early sermons.

 

When your father dies,

take notes somewhere inside.

Taut skin stretches over his head

 

as if pinned at the nape.

Once dark and bushy, his hair

now pale and tame, has slipped slow

 

as a glacier into a neckline fringe.

Magnified by tortoise shells,

his dark eyes sink like marbles.

 

But pity the hand whose closing

scissors excise him

and sever the U of A Press.

 

Despite Frank and football,

the literati will have none of it.

Like fans on fall Saturdays,

 

we boo and hiss and leave off

breathing until it is restored.

His poems navigate between

 

innovation and tradition

like a Buffalo River canoeist.

Similes shimmer; some titles

 

are longer even than their texts.

The storm moves to the next ridge.

Listening, we wait.

~~

--PL



Winter is upon us-poems

"Inside"

One cat on the sofa,
one cat on the rug.
Two cats in the wingback chair
locked in sleepy hug.

Sitting at the table,
I relish every bite
of cheese-on-rye while watching
the trees in icy white.
[PL - 2. 5. '14]
~~

"Drat it!"

"Nothing
in the feeder,"
says the daddy redbird,
"so I'll try the birdbath. It's full,
but cold."
[PL - 1. 4. ;15]
~~

Tanka

two bluebirds
filling up
on beautyberries
before
the temps drop
[PL - 1. 7. '15]
~~

Tanka

cardinal sips
under the rock
on the frozen
birdbath--
temps still falling
[PL - 1. 7. '15]
~~
~~

Visions of sugarplums? NOT

day after Christmas--
full-page ads from retailer
and car dealer
[PL -12. 26. '14]
~~

From Baghdad: (two found poems)

in what's left
of our town
you can't tell
who's 'friend,'
and who's 'foe'


refugee child
asked Santa
for a red dress
but he delivered
purple. She's happy.
[PL -  ideas from M Hennessy-Fiske, LA Times]
~~

On Christmas
Sierra Leoneans
staying put--
fear of Ebola
rampant
[PL - found from article by S. Gbandias, Bloomberg News]
~~
~~