Winter's Muse Calling / JD Shirk

Winter's Muse Calling

Soodiasadi, Winter hiking

 in Switzerland, 2020 (detail).

CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

I will not venture far outside today
Where things are frozen solid anyway
There wind is howling through the naked trees
I doubt there's really all that much to see

There's ice I'm sure that's covering the lake
Bare rocks and such whatever trail I take
All birds and creatures of the wooded park
Are hibernating somewhere safe and dark

Still, looking out my window I can muse
If winter could by chance be holding clues
To secrets known to those who cannot stay
Indoors on even coldest winter days

Of course you know I say all this the while
I'm buckling boots and going for a mile

~~
JD Shirk, 2022

[All rights reserved - used with permission]

JD Shirk biography

I'm Not Just February / Annette Wynne

I'm not just February

Frances Tipton Hunter (1896-1957),

Our Valentine Party, from The Children's 

Party Book, 1923. Wikimedia Commons.

I'm not just February
With winds that blow
All day, and piled-up snow;
I'm Washington and Lincoln, too,
Who kept our country's flag for you!
I'm Valentine of airy grace —
With golden hearts and hearts of lace
And pretty cards that people send,
Quite as a secret, to a friend.
Though I am short of days and small,
I'm quite a big month, after all!

~~
Annette Wynne (1889-1952)

from For Days and Days: A year-round treasury of child verse, 1919

[Poem is in the public domain 

in Canada and the United States]

Annette Wynne biography

February / Ina Coolbrith

February

Newly wedded, and happy quite,
    Careless alike of wind and weather,
Two wee birds, from a merry flight,
    Swing in the tree-top, sing together:
Love to them, in the wintry hour,
Summer and sunshine, bud and flower!

So, belovéd, when skies are sad,
    Love can render their sombre golden;
A thought of thee, and the day is glad
    As a rose in the dewy dawn unfolden;
And away, away, on passionate wings,
My heart like a bird at thy window sings!

~~

Ina Coolbrith (1841-1928)
from The Golden Gate, and other poems, 1895

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Ina Coolbrith biography

Tatiana Gerus, Russian blue tit and great tit, 2011. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Poem for Kathy / Will Dockery

Poem for Kathy

Will and Kathy, February 11, 1978.

Who is wonderful to me
who's a true love –
Princess of the Night
Demonstar Sorceress,
lots of love to you –
you're great.

I can't think of
anything else I should write.
If I try
my emotions explode.

~~
Will Dockery, 1977
from Selected Poems, 1976-2019, 2019 

[All rights reserved - used with permission]

Will Dockery biography

A Valentine / Lewis Carroll

A Valentine

    [Sent to a friend who had complained that I was glad enough to see
    him when he came, but didn’t seem to miss him if he stayed away.]

And cannot pleasures, while they last,
Be actual unless, when past,
They leave us shuddering and aghast,
        With anguish smarting?
And cannot friends be firm and fast,
        And yet bear parting?

And must I then, at Friendship’s call,
Calmly resign the little all
(Trifling, I grant, it is and small)
        I have of gladness,
And lend my being to the thrall
        Of gloom and sadness?

And think you that I should be dumb,
And full dolorum omnium,
Excepting when you choose to come
        And share my dinner?
At other times be sour and glum
        And daily thinner?

Must he then only live to weep,
Who’d prove his friendship true and deep
By day a lonely shadow creep,
        At night-time languish,
Oft raising in his broken sleep
        The moan of anguish?

The lover, if for certain days
His fair one be denied his gaze,
Sinks not in grief and wild amaze,
        But, wiser wooer,
He spends the time in writing lays,
        And posts them to her.

And if the verse flow free and fast,
Till even the poet is aghast,
A touching Valentine at last
        The post shall carry,
When thirteen days are gone and past
        Of February.

Farewell, dear friend, and when we meet,
In desert waste or crowded street,
Perhaps before this week shall fleet,
        Perhaps to-morrow,
I trust to find your heart the seat
        Of wasting sorrow.

~~
Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), 1860
from Phantasmagoria, and other poems, 1869

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Lewis Carroll biography

"A Valentine" read for LibriVox.org. Courtesy Audiobooks Hub.

Winter / Richard Chenevix Trench

from The Seasons

Winter

White ermine now the mountains wear,
And shield with this their shoulders bare.

The dark pine wears the snow, as head
Of Ethiop doth white turban wear.

The floods are armed with silver shields,
Through which the Sun's sword cannot fare;

For he who once in mid heaven rode,
In golden arms, on golden chair,

Now through small corner of the sky
Creeps low, nor warms the foggy air.

To mutter 'twixt their teeth the streams,
In icy fetters, scarcely dare.

Hushed is the busy hum of life;
'Tis silence in the earth and air.

From mountains issues the gaunt wolf,
And from its forest depths the bear.

Where is the garden's beauty now?
The thorn is here; the rose, oh where?

The trees, like giant skeletons,
Wave high their fleshless arms and bare;

Or stand like wrestlers stripped and bold,
And strongest winds to battle dare.

It seems a thing impossible
That earth its glories should repair;

That ever this bleak world again
Should bright and beauteous mantle wear,

Or sounds of life again be heard
In this dull earth and vacant air.

~~

Richard Chenevix Trench (1807-1866)
from Poems, 1865

[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]

Richard Chenevix Trench biography

"The Seasons" by Trench, read by Sonia for LibriVox. Courtesy Rhodoclassics.

February's featured poem

The Penny Blog's featured  poem for February 2026:

Afterglow, by George J. Dance

My darling, on this night of Valentine's, 

Excuse me while I find a way to say 

I love you, knowing I could never pay 

For thirty years with only fourteen lines

[...]

https://gdancesbetty.blogspot.com/2012/02/afterglow-george-dance.html