Winter Poems

Do you like poetry?  Why or why not?  That is the question of the day.  Please comment below!

Still, whether you like poetry or not, I have found that you can find poems about almost anything, but especially the seasons of the year.  A book I recently read, titled Emily of New Moon by L.M Montgomery, had a section about poetry and spring.  It made the statement that one isn't really even a poet if they haven't written about the wonders of spring.  We're not in spring yet, so I'm sharing some poetry about the season we're in the thick of: Winter.  

Please enjoy my favorite poems about winter.  

Starlings in Winter 

— — —

By Mary Oliver 

Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly

they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can't imagine

how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard. I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

— — —

Snow Flakes 

— — —

By Emily Dickinson 

I counted till they danced so

Their slippers leaped the town –

And then I took a pencil

To note the rebels down –

And then they grew so jolly

I did resign the prig –

And ten of my once stately toes

Are marshalled for a jig!

— — —

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening 

— — —

By Robert Frost 

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

— — —

A Quote by Mary Oliver 

— — —

"Snow was falling 

So much like stars 

Filling the dark trees 

That one could easily  imagine 

Its reason for being was

Nothing more 

Than prettiness."

— — —

A Quote by L.M Montgomery 

— — —

"When the wind of winter blows 

Over the uplands and moonlit spaces 

Come ye out to the waste of snows 

To the glimmering fields and 

The silent places." 

— — — 

Thank you for reading!  

I hope you enjoyed reading a couple of poems that are quite apropos for me.  Which one was your favorite?  I think my favorite is the first one, Starlings in Winter by Mary Oliver.  Each Mary Oliver poem is so impactful, seeming to be about starlings or geese or wildflowers at the beginning but as the poem draws to a close it turns out to be to about so much more.  

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