Dec. 20

Vocabulary Word of the Day (Merriam Webster) Gainsay - verb gayn-SAY Gainsay is a formal word that means “to deny or disagree with something,” or “to show or say that (something) is not true.” // Although the defendant initially denied involvement in the incident, there was no gainsaying the evidence that the prosecutor presented at the trial.

Trivia: What Day is it Today? December 21, 2022 - Winter Solstice - December Solstice - International Dalek Remembrance Day - National Lee Day - World Snowboard Day

1. TO KNOW THE DARK BY WENDELL BERRY To go in the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight, and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings, and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

2. A WINTER SOLSTICE PRAYER BY EDWARD HAYS Excerpt: The dark shadow of space leans over us… We are mindful that the darkness of greed, exploitation, and hatred also lengthens its shadow over our small planet Earth. As our ancestors feared death and evil and all the dark powers of winter, we fear that the darkness of war, discrimination, and selfishness may doom us and our planet to an eternal winter.

3. THE SHORTEST DAY BY SUSAN COOPER Excerpt: So the shortest day came, and the year died, And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world Came people singing, dancing, To drive the dark away.

4. AN OLD MAN’S WINTER NIGHT BY ROBERT FROST Excerpt: All out-of-doors looked darkly in at him Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars, That gathers on the pane in empty rooms. What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.

THOSE WINTER SUNDAYS BY ROBERT HAYDEN Excerpt: Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

LITTLE GIDDING BY T.S. ELIOT Excerpt: Midwinter spring is its own season Sempiternal though 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.

THE WORLD BY JENNIFER CHANG Excerpt: One winter I lived north, alone and effortless, dreaming myself into the past. Perhaps, I thought, words could replenish privacy.

To Winter by Claude McKay Stay, season of calm love and soulful snows! There is a subtle sweetness in the sun, The ripples on the stream’s breast gaily run, The wind more boisterously by me blows, And each succeeding day now longer grows. The birds a gladder music have begun, The squirrel, full of mischief and of fun, From maple’s topmost branch the brown twig throws. I read these pregnant signs, know what they mean: I know that thou art making ready to go. Oh stay! I fled a land where fields are green Always, and palms wave gently to and fro, And winds are balmy, blue brooks ever sheen, To ease my heart of its impassioned woe.

Snow Derek Walcott Against thin woods, Siberian snow steadily erases objects from their names, like weevils in flour rocks crawl under the elms. There is a place whose year is February. A red bird on a branch is the one leaf for acres. Ruffled at where it’s gone, the Tartar-gold, collapsing canopy of autumn, it repeats one cry simply to punctuate oblivion, a hillock-hopping, crimson cardinal darting Virginia in disbelief. The blizzard brushes out its airy echo back to the original blankness of paper that must not be marred, but the bird thrusts itself on, the wings splay in scary limping through enormous calm, leaving prints on the page in bird-Cyrillic. Through whirling syllables it is like the lyric voice not settled on a style, or silence in the mind of Mandelstam.

White-Eyes BY MARY OLIVER In winter all the singing is in the tops of the trees where the wind-bird with its white eyes shoves and pushes among the branches. Like any of us he wants to go to sleep, but he's restless— he has an idea, and slowly it unfolds from under his beating wings as long as he stays awake. But his big, round music, after all, is too breathy to last. So, it's over. In the pine-crown he makes his nest, he's done all he can. I don't know the name of this bird, I only imagine his glittering beak tucked in a white wing while the clouds— which he has summoned from the north— which he has taught to be mild, and silent— thicken, and begin to fall into the world below like stars, or the feathers of some unimaginable bird that loves us, that is asleep now, and silent— that has turned itself into snow.

In the bleak midwinter BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, long ago. Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain; Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign. In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ. Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day, Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay; Enough for Him, whom angels fall before, The ox and ass and camel which adore. Angels and archangels may have gathered there, Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air; But His mother only, in her maiden bliss, Worshipped the beloved with a kiss. What can I give Him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb; If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part; Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

Lines: The cold earth slept below BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY The cold earth slept below; Above the cold sky shone; And all around, With a chilling sound, From caves of ice and fields of snow The breath of night like death did flow Beneath the sinking moon. The wintry hedge was black; The green grass was not seen; The birds did rest On the bare thorn’s breast, Whose roots, beside the pathway track, Had bound their folds o’er many a crack Which the frost had made between. Thine eyes glow’d in the glare Of the moon’s dying light; As a fen-fire’s beam On a sluggish stream Gleams dimly—so the moon shone there, And it yellow’d the strings of thy tangled hair, That shook in the wind of night. The moon made thy lips pale, beloved; The wind made thy bosom chill; The night did shed On thy dear head Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie Where the bitter breath of the naked sky Might visit thee at will.

Song: “Blow, blow, thou winter wind” BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Blow, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man’s ingratitude; Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude. Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly: Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly: Then, heigh-ho, the holly! This life is most jolly. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, That dost not bite so nigh As benefits forgot: Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp As friend remembered not. Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly...