Posts Tagged ‘cats’
Frost and Fire.
[This snowy photo makes me miss having cats so, so much.]
Isn’t it funny how sometimes once you’ve taken notice of a certain word or phrase, it can keep reappearing in all kinds of places. I’ve heard or read “the still point of the turning world” three times in the last two days. It’s from T. S. Eliot, and his Four Quartets is one of the few poetry books I have on my shelves, so I thought I’d share with you the opening to Little Gidding. It’s rather appropriate as snow has been forecast for Friday, which would usually be exciting, but Friday is the day I’m supposed to be driving home. Oh dear.
Little GiddingI.
Midwinter spring is its own season Sempiternal through sodden towards sundown, Suspended in time, between pole and tropic. When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire, The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches, In windless cold that is the heart’s heat, Reflecting in a watery mirror A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon. And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier, Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing The soul’s sap quivers. There is no earth smell Or smell of living thing. This is the spring time But not in time’s covenant. Now the hedgerow Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom Of snow, a bloom more sudden Than that of summer, neither budding nor fading, Not in the scheme of generation. Where is the summer, the unimaginable, Zero summer?
sunlight
It’s been beautifully sunny all day today, but sadly I had to work this morning. So this afternoon I’ve been reading, relaxing and baking cakes whilst listening to The Brave and The Bold, by Tortoise and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. Perfect.
Oh, and happy 1st of March!
