Poem no. 22: January Joy
A tumbling beauty of a day – sun spilling out on scarce-budded hedges, blue sky soft as that of a day in spring.
It should not be, it could not be – and yet it is.
It is a day that calls to the heart to sing – or brings words bubbling up under the skin.
It is a day when the heart lifts in the newly minted light – grown fresh and harvested in the dark days of winter – when we watched the lowering skies and hungered for the now. Hungered for days like this; days when light touches the skin with delicate promise and whispers that more is to come.
Since I saw the light this morning – shivering in the palest silver blue along the water and echoed in the morning sky, I have wanted to be home.
This light is where you go home to: it’s where you return. It is the very origin of things; it is where we begin.
And as the words stir under my skin and ripple through my mind, so the earth begins to murmur and shift as a sleeper does before they wake.
There will be other days of darkness – days when colour and hope are leached from the hours given to us – but today the world is full of light and promise and, in it, I am glad – heart glad – to be alive.
© Anne McMaster 2016
The gentleness of this piece feels like a cup of tea on a wet day…dunno…it’s so warm and lovely.
I maybe reading into it but I sense a pagan feel to the pieces…love that. Maybe that’s my pagan soul reading the nature honouring in your work but it is really lovely.
Thank you for this.
Thank you so much! I have a strong connection to nature – yes: I live on an old farm in rural Northern Ireland so nature is kinda up close and personal! As I’ve grown older, so many of the peripheral fripperies of life (get me!) have fallen away – now it’s days like this January day which make me happy: and I mean PROFOUNDLY happy – like grinning like an idiot happy! I spent 19 years working my butt off and leaving the farm on beautiful mornings that I knew I wouldn’t get to see because I was working in college. I gathered these beautiful moments to me like precious beads because that’s what they were – totally precious. And isn’t nature just damn amazing in the way that it rolls, gracefully, from season to season? 🙂
“It is a day that call to the heart to sing…or brings words bubbling up to her skin.” I love this part for its imagery. 🙂
Thank you! I am so glad you enjoyed that phrase! There are days when nature just makes me so damn happy that I feel alive and blessed by what I see. That’s what I was trying to get across 🙂
“A day that calls to the heart to sing…or brings bubbling words up to her skin.”
The opening section is beautifull written and so, when these words came:///Since I saw the light this morning – shivering in the palest silver blue along the water and echoed in the morning sky, I have wanted to be home. I thought I understood- it was a turning- not just a nice day but a powerful day, a sigificant day
you continue
This light is where you go home to: it’s where you return. It is the very origin of things; it is where we begin.
Whether intentionally or not, you refer to the rebirth of life itself, the return of the sun after the solstice.
How wonderful to make it in the pleasure of this particular day.
I lived in Seattle for many years, where the winters were fairly mild, but brutish dark, and the first sunny day had people out of their office buildings with their feet in the fountains. How spoiled I have become in California.
Paul, I so enjoyed reading your feedback on this piece of my writing! Oh, light to me is precious: it is all about rebirth indeed. I lived in California for 5 years (San Diego) but I’m now back living on the old farm that was built by my g-g-g-g-grandfather. I think Northern Ireland is roughly on the same latitude as Seattle, so I understand about the ‘brutish dark’ that you mention. When the time changes here in October, dusk eventually falls about 4pm and the evenings are long and dark for several months. I’m rural to the core and adore being outdoors (not necessarily in the sun but certainly in the light) and by the time January comes along, I am physically hungry for daylight.
I’ve gone through a number of difficult things in my lifetime, but I’ve learned to be profoundly grateful for the things which surround me – and I was driving up to Derry (the subject of my other open that you commented on) by the banks of the Foyle river. It was so amazingly beautiful and the light was so hopefully and brightly perfect that it stayed with me – and remains still.
What a joy and privilege to read your comments= they are here without the poems= and every one bursts in my mouth with pleasure, joy, surprise, appreciation like biting on a candy with a surprise filling. How blessed are these writers to have you read their poems!