6
" Just let me wait a little while longer,
Under your window in the quite snow.
Let me stand here and shiver, I’ll be stronger
If I can see your light before I go.
All through the weeks I’ve tried to keep my balance.
Leaves fell, then rain, then shadows, I fell too.
Easy restraint is not among my talents,
Fall turned to Winter and I came to you.
Kissed by the snow I contemplate your face.
Oh, do not hide it in your pillow yet!
Warm rooms would never lure me from this place,
If only I could see your silhouette.
Turn on your light, my sun, my summer love.
Zero degrees down here, July above. "
― Polly Shulman , Enthusiasm
7
" While Nape was making the bread and Dryas boiling the ram, Daphnis and Chloe had time to go forth as far as the ivy-bush; and when he had set his snares again and pricked his lime-twigs, they not only catched good store of birds, but had a sweet collation of kisses without intermission, and a dear conversation in the language of love: " Chloe, I came for thy sake." " I know it, Daphnis." " 'Tis long of thee that I destroy the poor birds." " What wilt thou with me?" " Remember me." " I remember thee, by the Nymphs by whom heretofore I have sworn in yonder cave, whither we will go as soon as ever the snow melts." " But it lies very deep, Chloe, and I fear I shall melt before the snow." " Courage, man; the Sun burns hot." " I would it burnt like that fire which now burns my very heart." " You do but gibe and cozen me!" " I do not, by the goats by which thou didst once bid me to swear to thee. "
8
" After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?
The Feet, mechanical, go round –
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone –
This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go – "
― Emily Dickinson , Selected Poems
10
" The first inkling of this notion had come to him the Christmas before, at his daughter's place in Vermont. On Christmas Eve, as indifferent evening took hold in the blue squares of the windows, he sat alone in the crepuscular kitchen, imbued with a profound sense of the identity of winter and twilight, of twilight and time, of time and memory, of his childhood and that church which on this night waited to celebrate the second greatest of its feasts. For a moment or an hour as he sat, become one with the blue of the snow and the silence, a congruity of star, cradle, winter, sacrament, self, it was as though he listened to a voice that had long been trying to catch his attention, to tell him, Yes, this was the subject long withheld from him, which he now knew, and must eventually act on.He had managed, though, to avoid it. He only brought it out now to please his editor, at the same time aware that it wasn't what she had in mind at all. But he couldn't do better; he had really only the one subject, if subject was the word for it, this idea of a notion or a holy thing growing clear in the stream of time, being made manifest in unexpected ways to an assortment of people: the revelation itself wasn't important, it could be anything, almost. Beyond that he had only one interest, the seasons, which he could describe endlessly and with all the passion of a country-bred boy grown old in the city. He was beginning to doubt (he said) whether these were sufficient to make any more novels out of, though he knew that writers of genius had made great ones out of less. He supposed really (he didn't say) that he wasn't a novelist at all, but a failed poet, like a failed priest, one who had perceived that in fact he had no vocation, had renounced his vows, and yet had found nothing at all else in the world worth doing when measured by the calling he didn't have, and went on through life fatally attracted to whatever of the sacerdotal he could find or invent in whatever occupation he fell into, plumbing or psychiatry or tending bar. (" Novelty" ) "
16
" The heartbeat is an irregular bell tolling; the footprints create ammonite patterns in the snow; they spiral in serpentine undulations, toward a complicated centre of mass, forming a beautifully inscribed hieroglyph, the earth acting as papyrus. It’s all signs and symbols; reading the emotions of another is an art, and tonight she lacks the imagination needed in order to be creative. Bewitching to behold, wings tucked neatly into the back of a loose summer jacket; his bare feet, dusky and dusty, tumble languidly toward her, over the soft crumbling ground. Dawn finds her dreams more beautiful to inhabit than reality. To her it becomes more real than the bed sheets she’s pulling close to her chest. As he approaches, she continues to watch the invocation of her desire. Wherever he steps the snow flees, it’s as if spring flowers from the very tips of his toes. She holds her breath as he slips his hand into hers, leading her away from the top of the hill on which they are standing. They don’t follow the path, instead they tread boldly over willow roots, twigs and fern leaves. Looking upwards, in order to see the colour of the sky, Dawn crosses her fingers for a shade of blue. "
20
" Yesterday I watched a curious nightfall. The cloud ceiling took on a warm tone, deepened, and departed as if drawn on a leash. I could no longer see the fat snow flying against the sky; I could see it only as it fell before dark objects. Any object at a distance –like the dead, ivy-covered walnut I see from the bay window- looked like a black and white frontispiece seen through a sheet of white tissue. It was like dying, this watching the world recede into deeper and deeper blues while the snow piled; silence swelled and extended, distance dissolved, and soon only concentration at the largest shadows let me make out the movement of falling snow, and that too failed. The snow on the yard was blue as ink, faintly luminous; the sky violet. The bay window betrayed me, and started giving me back the room’s lamps. It was like dying, that growing dimmer and deeper and then going out. "
― Annie Dillard , Pilgrim at Tinker Creek