Winter Trees

The black outlines of bare trees,

Barren boles, stark against

Yellow light of yesterday's snow.

The cloud-veiled sky covering

A shorn world starved of shadow.

A Moment of Quiet

The Dyfi Estuary in January

After weeks of wet, cloudy days, interspersed with days of wind and rain, today is cold, clear and still. The road to the sand dunes at Ynys Las was flooded and the 'slacks' between the road and the dunes, where orchids flower in Summer, were covered in ice-sheeted water. Inland on the mountains there had been snow, but not here on the coast. The dunes were all but deserted - just someone walking a dog and a couple of bird watchers apart from us.

The tide was far out but the sand on the beach was still wet and our feet made deep impressions in its ribbed surface as we walked. Over the sea the sky was iron-grey with thin cloud through which the sun filtered a silver light that glittered on the surface of the sea where its rays descended.

Inland the cloud was even thinner and areas of blue, varying from pale 'sky' blue to a much more intense darker blue in some patches over the distant mountains. This is an open landscape of sea, sand, salt marsh and bog.The valley of the river Dyfi opens to a wide estuary winding to the south and the west of two mountain ranges. The view up the valley shows a landscape already crowding in. But from here, today, the nearer hills stand in sharp outline in the clear air, while the more distant mountains are gleaming white with snow.

On these dunes, where so often the wind whips up the sand and the sound of the rushing sea fills the air,I experience a rare moment of quiet. Nothing moves. Not one particle of the chill air.

Persephone

Περσεφόνη

The bright hue of that flower
Drained from her world as the shadow
Fell and darkness was all about her;
Not the cool shade of summer woods
Or even the blackness of the dark of the Moon
In winter - no particle of light was here
No wave of light's motion,

No flower, no fruit, but the seed
Under her tongue her only memory
As her steps through the gloom
Echo in the halls of Hades
While the empty woods dream of her return
Strewing the ground with leaves shed
For the cold comfort that winterlight brings.

Great Nights Returning

It's a while since I've revisited the magnificent poem below by Vernon Watkins. I was moved to do so by the frosty nights we have been having and the array of stars on display. Looking up at the stars in the clear sky the other night, in one of those synchronous moments where an event links with a memory, I just thought I had to come into the house and read the poem. It seems perfect for the Winter Solstice.

Portrait of Vernon Watkins by Alfred Janes

Great nights returning, midnight's constellations
Gather from groundfrost that unnatural brilliance.
Night now transfigures, walking in the starred ways,
Tears for the living.

Earth now takes back the secret of her changes.
All the wood's dropped leaves listen to your footfall.
Night has no tears, no sound among the branches;
Stopped is the swift stream.

Spirits were joined when hazel leaves were falling.
Then the stream hurrying told of separation.
This is the fires' world, and the voice of Autumn
Stilled by the death-wand.

Under your heels the icy breath of Winter
Hardens all roots. The Leonids are flying.
Now the crisp stars, the circle of beginning;
Death, birth, united.

Nothing declines here. Energy is fire-born.
Twigs catch like stars or serve for your divining.
Lean down and hear the subterranean water
Crossed by the quick dead.

Now the soul knows the fire that first composed it
Sinks not with time but is renewed hereafter.
Death cannot steal the light which love has kindled
Nor the years change it.