Winter, Week 6: Winter Sun and Nightingales

Cynthia Reeves, “Winter Sun,” 1971

vi

winter pond
low sun’s
ricochets of light


low sun
even the water
in the culvert glows


nothing is lost
sunlight of 1960
aflame on the hearth


Journal entry, 29 January 2010: “Duke Gardens: Winter jasmine is starting to bloom by the dry fish pond. Two quarreling geese abruptly make up at sunset & paddle together.”

The Sun of Austerlitz, 2 December 1895
“[Napoleon] looked now at the Pratzen Heights, now at the sun floating up out of the mist. When the sun had entirely emerged from the fog, and fields and mist were aglow with dazzling light—as if he had only awaited this to begin the action—he drew the glove from his shapely white hand, made a sign with it to the marshals, and ordered the action to begin. The marshals, accompanied by adjutants, galloped off in different directions, and a few minutes later the chief forces of the French army moved rapidly toward those Pratzen Heights which were being more and more denuded by Russian troops moving down the valley to their left.”--Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (p. 439), translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude. Global Publishers. Kindle Edition.

Callimachus, Epigram 34
When I heard, Heraclitus, you were dead,
I thought of all the suns we’d talked to bed
those nights, and the tears came. Dear guest, I know
that you were ashes long and long ago,
and yet your nightingales are singing still:
Death kills all things, but them he cannot kill.
 
Translated by Christopher Childers, The Penguin Book of Greek and Latin Lyric Verse (p. 280). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

Malachi 4:2
 
"But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall."


Posted 27 January 2025. Send comments to [email protected]