Winter Art and Poetry

It's winter now. Where I live it's cold, with a little bit of snow on lawns and roofs. Much of the country is in considerably worse shape -- the worst being the Colorado town that burned to cinders just before the snow fell. We have to stay in, like a large number of people, but our house is warm, our food supplies are fine, and we have nothing to complain about. We are the fortunate ones in this dreary time. 

I was thinking about how poets and artists have given us such enjoyable creations that express something akin to what I'm experiencing. First, a few of my favorite winter-theme art works:

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, "Hunters in the Snow (Winter)," 1567.

Hiroshige, "Mt. Fuji and Mt. Ashigara in Snow from Numazu
in Clear Weather after a Snowfall," 1855

August Rodin, "The Burghers of Calais," 1884-1895.

Renee Magritte, "Golconde," 1953

Marcel Duchamp "In Advance of the Broken Arm."

The last piece of art above is a "Ready Made" by that joker Marcel Duchamp, from the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, dated 1964. Duchamp "produced" quite a few of these, so I've seen them in several museums (also on my back porch, but unsigned). From the MOMA website: "Duchamp purchased the first version of this work in a hardware store in 1915, signed and dated the shovel, and hung it on display from his studio ceiling." (source) I'm a big fan of Duchamp and his DaDa style.

Finally, I found a poem that I had never read before that seems very apt for this season:

 Lines for Winter

BY MARK STRAND

for Ros Krauss

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.

Poem from Poetry Foundation.