Imagine yourself buried in the grass
and leaves — piled high on some wet winter day
by unseen hands that had an hour to pass
in mischief, with no set rules to obey —
for who would mind that they should rake to grace
gray, sodden ground with mounded art, to slay
an idle hour? So chill against your face,
and damp and clingy, fall the grasses, leaves,
dark twigs, and scraped-up roots. The only trace
left of you is the sense that this year grieves
for years long past, of ice and snow. But say
that now a lively, laughing wind retrieves
your hidden self to view! Thus life will play!
And somehow you rejoice in this gray day.
A note . . .
I wrote this sonnet on the 29th of December. The day was warmer than it is today, which is the first of the new year; the ground, wet; and the sky, as the sonnet says, gray.
Today, though colder, with random snowflakes being breeze-blown here and there . . . is gray again.
When I wrote the poem I thought it might do, as a New Year's expression. It still seems to suit the occasion. This may not turn out the happiest year, at least for us in United States. Yet in the gray ambiguity of our times we may yet find joy.
Cheers . . .
