Mark Strand, Pulitzer-prize-winning poet, died today, and I'll be damned if he didn't write just about the best poem to encapsulate my mood. His other poems are equally gorgeous and spare in tone, but this one is particularly timely for me.
Lines For Winter
Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself --
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself --
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.
Offered without commentary today simply because I can't quite encapsulate the sneakiness of grief, almost two years later, as Christmas lights twinkle and the weather gets darker. This is why we have poets: to say what we mean, and mean what we say.
What are you telling yourself these days?
