March 2, 2018

It was cold and windy, scarcely the day to take a walk on that long beach Everything was withdrawn as far as possible, indrawn: the tide far out, the ocean shrunken.

—Elizabeth Bishop


February 23, 2018

Exhaust the little moment. Soon it dies. And be it gash or gold it will not come Again in this identical disguise.

—Gwendolyn Brooks


February 16, 2018

You’re the life principle, more or less, so get going on a little optimism around here. Get rid of death. Celebrate increase. Make it be spring.

—Margaret Atwood


February 9, 2018

 She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes.

—Lord Byron


February 2, 2018

Ah, he starts to Stir. With drowsy Stare Looks from his burrow Out on fields of Snow. What’s there? Oh no. His shadow.

—Lilian Moore


January 26, 2018

The fields are infertile as far as I can tell. Their winter systems sparkle like the diamonds that pelt Neptune.

—Fanny Howe


January 19, 2018

(Home is) a place we carry inside ourselves, a place where we welcome the unfamiliar because we know that as time passes it will become the very bedrock of our being.

—Verlyn Klinkenborg


January 12, 2018

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.

—Robert Frost


January 5, 2018

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.

—Mary Oliver


December 29, 2017

The new years come, the old years go, We know we dream, we dream we know. We rise up laughing with the light, We lie down weeping with the night.

—Ella Wheeler Wilcox


December 22, 2017

The angels came from heaven high, And they were clad with wings; And lo, they brought a joyful song The host of heaven sings.

—Sara Teasdale


December 15, 2017

Then the Menorah once again Illumed the holy shrine, One little flask of sacred oil, Saved unpolluted from the spoil Supplied the light divine.

—Marion Hartog


December 8, 2017

Carols sung out in the snow, A Snowman built with eyes aglow, Crackers pulled, a song to sing, Candles lit, and bells that ring.

—Ernestine Northover


December 1, 2017

Only the tree-tops bare Crowning the hill, Clear-cut in perfect air Warn us that still Winter, the aged chief, Mighty in power, Exiles the tender leaf, Exiles the flower.

—Robert Fuller Murray


November 24, 2017

A sound commences in my left ear like the sound of the sea in a shell; a downward, vertiginous drag comes with it. Time to head home.

—Jane Kenyon


November 17, 2017

And already still November Drapes her snowy table here. Fetch a log, then; coax the ember; Fill your hearts with old-time cheer; Heaven be thanked for one more year.

—George Parsons Lathrop


November 10, 2017

I didn’t know I was grateful For such late-autumn Bent-up cornfields Yellow in the after-harvest Sun before the Cold plow turns it all over.

—Bruce Weigl


November 3, 2017

How silently they tumble down And come to rest upon the ground To lay a carpet, rich and rare, Beneath the trees without a care.

—Elsie N. Brady


October 27, 2017

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, Are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, The world offers itself to your imagination.

—Mary Oliver


October 20, 2017

The leaves fall, the wind blows, and the farm country slowly changes from the summer cottons into its winter wools.

—Henry Beston


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