Day 866: December Weather

Although many of us are waiting, frosty breath baited, for snow, it doesn't seem likely this year in Ireland. But for now I can be satisfied with these calm days as John Updike describes them here, 'no special weather' therefore no 'impediment'. There's a beauty in these days, a 'contemplative' grey yes, offering all kind of music.

 


December, Outdoors - John Updike

Clouds like fish shedding scales are stretched
thin above Salem. The calm cold sea
accepts the sun as an equal, a match:
the horizon a truce, the air all still.
Sun, but no shadows somehow, the trees
ideally deleafed, a contemplative gray
that ushers into the woods (in summer
crammed with undergrowth) sheer space.

How fortunate it is to move about
without impediment, Nature having
no case to make, no special weather to plead,
unlike some storm-obsessed old symphonist.
The day is piano; I see buds so subtle
they know, though fat, that this is no time to bloom.