Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SONGS FOR A WINTER FIRE: 6. WARM DAYS IN WINTER, by CALE YOUNG RICE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SONGS FOR A WINTER FIRE: 6. WARM DAYS IN WINTER, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: When warm days come in the middle of winter
Last Line: And you dream of a faun's, or wood-nymph's, fife.
Subject(s): Dreams; Life; Winter; Nightmares


When warm days come in the middle of winter
You know that the year is remembering its youth.
Cracks sound loud in the ice -- to splinter
Your fear lest the stream is stilled past ruth.
Stirred by the thrill of their reassurance
You look at a birch to see if a bud
Is saying the same thing under the bark;
It seems that you could not have understood.

You go home thinking about it -- and burn
An extra log on the fire that night.
You take down a book -- a poet -- and learn
Of the wild swan's call on her homing flight.
You go to bed, and your eyes close;
But the dark is green with a sense of life
Surging back to the frozen world;
And you dream of a faun's, or wood-nymph's, fife.





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