Welcome to where I am, where my kitchen's always messy, a pot's (or a poet) always about to boil over, a dog is always begging to be fed. Drafts of poems on the counter. Windows filled with leaves. Wind. Clouds moving over the mountains. If you like poetry, books, and music--especially dog howls when a siren unwinds down the hill-- you'll like it here.


MY NEW AUTHOR'S SITE, KATHRYNSTRIPLINGBYER.COM, THAT I MYSELF SET UP THROUGH WEEBLY.COM, IS NOW UP. I HAD FUN CREATING THIS SITE AND WOULD RECOMMEND WEEBLY.COM TO ANYONE INTERESTED IN SETTING UP A WEBSITE. I INVITE YOU TO VISIT MY NEW SITE TO KEEP UP WITH EVENTS RELATED TO MY NEW BOOK.


MY NC POET LAUREATE BLOG, MY LAUREATE'S LASSO, WILL REMAIN UP AS AN ARCHIVE OF NC POETS, GRADES K-INFINITY! I INVITE YOU TO VISIT WHEN YOU FEEL THE NEED TO READ SOME GOOD POEMS.

VISIT MY NEW BLOG, MOUNTAIN WOMAN, WHERE YOU WILL FIND UPDATES ON WHAT'S HAPPENING IN MY KITCHEN, IN THE ENVIRONMENT, IN MY IMAGINATION, IN MY GARDEN, AND AMONG MY MOUNTAIN WOMEN FRIENDS.




Tuesday, February 16, 2010

NO MORE SNOW, PLEASE!

Nothing is more magical than snow falling, especially in late evening as night settles in and the snowlight begins to glow in the sky, covering everything with what seems like a glass bowl. I love the way the world looks outside my doors.





I do not love the cleanup afterward, though. We were lucky that several large limbs missed our car and that the one blocking our driveway was removable by us. We went without power for a couple of days two weeks ago, and while that was fun for a little while, I was glad when the lights came back on. This latest snow on Friday was delicate, falling like sifted flour, and my husband was able to clear the road fairly quickly next morning. The light coming through the lacework of branches Saturday dawn was beautiful.






So, here's to snow, in moderate amounts! And now, how about spring? To hell with the groundhog saying in groundhogese that we've 6 more weeks of winter. Or maybe he didn't say that at all. It's in how you interpret things, after all. Who knows what a groundhog thinks, if if he/she even thinks at all.

Sorry, didn't mean to diss groundhogs! I like the one that lives down the hill from us and hope that he has a long and happy life, away from the wheels of drunk students and other assorted maniacs who take the curve too fast.

Spring will come when it gets good and ready. The wind cutting through my wool scarf this morning made me hope it was getting ready! Here's a poem for the first shoot of green pushing up through the cold sod. I wrote it for Cathy Smith Bowers, our new Poet Laureate, after she visited me in Sylva last month.

(I've long been fascinated by how certain words "feel" in our mouths. Green, in this instance. And verde, how does it differ from our Anglo-Saxon green? It's more of a dance. Our "green" is a keening, a longing, maybe because of the long Nordic winters?? I also wanted to try to express how each poem wakes us up, makes us see again. )



Winter Noon

Sylva, North Carolina

(1/20/2001)

Verde, que te quiero verde....

(Green, how I want you green.. .)

‘ Federico Garcia-Lorca

for Cathy



We’ve seen how stems snap,

the leaves fall,

the rain soaks,

how ice weaves its blanket

around weeds and garden.


Now we raise our glasses

to what we see over the rooftops

of downtown: gray mountains waiting

beneath scales of cloud


like the ones we know fall

from our eyes

when we see

how each poem comes alive

in the midst of our cold times,


a small hook

that yearns through the mute

sod, our throats

tight with keening its

coming forth, the tip

of our tongues

against bedrock.





4 comments:

Nancy Simpson said...

Hello to Kay this snowy evening.It was twenty degrees when I woke this morning and has not risen above 25 all day. Probably no one else I know has a clue what this winter has done to me. I've had about all I can take. I know it's not bad like Buffalo in 77, and I might sound like a cry baby, but when you say " No more snow, Please!" I say, "No more!". It's still snowing. The few who call say, "Well, all the roads are clear in the valley," as if they think I am lying when I say my road is covered with snow, and it is impassible.

I'm sure it has everything to do with being situated on the northside. The old switchback, you know. When it started snowing Friday and covered the road and woods in one hour, I knew. This is the fifth or sixth snow. I've lost track. How did Alma endure?

Thanks for the beautiful pictures and the poem.

See you in the spring.

Vicki Lane said...

The pastel sky through the winter trees is beautiful but what resonates with me today is the thought of green as a keening word.

GREEN!!!! Que te quiero! GREEN!!!!

Jessie Carty said...

i am oh so tired of this cold weather!!! and i don't want to hate the groundhog either :) that line about him living a good life really cracked me up!

Kathryn Stripling Byer said...

Nancy, I want this winter over--for your sake, if nothing else. I don't know how women like Alma endured. Women like Emma Bell Miles, who lived on a mountain with 7 children and lost one because the dr. couldn't get to them, who had TB and died of it. I think of the deathwatches mothers went through during the winter months in these mountains.
So, Vicki, I can imagine the keening that must have accompanied their longing for the green of spring. How they wanted it so passionately!
I love the groundhog song, Jessie. Do you know it? Old Groundhog....