A year is made up of
a certain series and number
of sensations and thoughts
which have their language in nature.
Henry Thoreau, June 6, 1857
It is something to know
when you are addressed by Divinity
and not by a common traveller.
I went down cellar
just now
to get an armful of wood
passing the brick piers with
my wood
and candle
I heard, methought,
a commonplace suggestion
but when I attended to the hint
I found
that it was
the voice of a god.
How many communications
may we not lose through inattention!
Snow is like a mold
showing the form of the wind –
where the wind has been.
Pink light on the snow –
the shadow of the bridges
dark indigo blue.
The winter landscape
The tints of the sunset sky
are never purer and ethereal
than in the coldest winter days.
This evening the sky is crystalline–
the pale fawn-tinged clouds beautiful.
I wish to get on to a hill
to look down on the winter landscape.
January 2, 1854
From the peak I look
over the wintry landscape –
the twilight lingers.
It is now fairly winter. We
have passed the line
have put the autumn behind us
have forgotten what are
these withered herbs
that rise above the snow
what flowers they ever bore.
From the Peak I look
over the wintry landscape.
Modest Quaker colors
seen above the snow.
The twilight appears to linger.
The day seems suddenly longer.
The woods are nightly
thronged with little creatures which
most have never seen.
Time will come when these will be all gone.
How pleasing to stand beside a new or rare tree!
and few are so handsome as this yellow birch
singularly allied to the black birch
in its sweet checkerberry scent
and to the canoe birch
in its peeling or fringed bark–
Bark an exquisite fine or delicate gold-color
curled off partly from the trunk
with vertical clear or smooth spaces.
This fair flaxen-haired sister
of the dark-complexioned black birch
with golden ringlets.
How lustily it takes hold
of the swampy soil and braces itself!
The sight of these trees affects me.
In an undress, this tree.
January 4, 1853
A Picture of Winter
Trees stems and branches
white with snow on the storm side –
The true wintry look.
Put a cottage there
roof it with snow-drifts and
let the smoke curl up.
Wheels of the storm chariots
The thin snow now
driving from the north and
lodging on my coat –
beautiful star crystals
with six perfect little leaflets
raying from the centre –
How full of the creative genius!
I should hardly admire more
if real stars fell on my coat.
A divinity must have stirred and set
each of these countless snow-stars
whirling to earth
each pronouncing with
emphasis the number six.
Order, κóσμos.
Not a snowflake escapes
its fashioning hand.
January 5, 1856
Attention
Little evidence
of God did I see just then
and life not as rich
when my attention
was caught by a snowflake
on my coat-sleeve ~
crystalline star-shape
like a flat wheel with six spokes
around a spangle
this little object
resting on my coat perfect
and beautiful
reminding me yet
of Nature's pristine vigor ~
why should man lose heart?
Through thin ice I see
my face in bubbles against
its under surface.
I feel spirits rise.
The life, the joy that is in
blue sky after storm!
The invisible moon
gives light through the thickest of
a driving snow-storm.
The bird-shaped scales of
the white birch are blown more than
twenty rods from trees.
Tracing birch scales north
twenty rods to the nearest
and the only birch.
Light of the setting
sun falling on the snow-banks
glows almost yellow.
The sky reflected
in the open river-reach,
now perfectly smooth.
As I climb the Cliff
I pause in the sun and sit
on a rock dreaming.
I sit dreaming of
summery hours. Times tinged
with eternity.
The colors in the
reflection differ from those
in the sunset sky.
Cold and blustery.
Crows flapping and sailing and
buffeting about.
Translucent leaves,
andromeda lit up like
cathedral windows.
Just before sunset
patches of sky in the west.
Afternoon glory.
Close objects stand out
against a near horizon.
Air thick with snowflakes.
Freshly fallen snow
sparkles with bright little suns.
Each flake a mirror.
The landscape is now
patches of bare ground and snow,
running water, sun.
Examined closely,
flakes are six-rayed stars or wheels
with a center disk.
Infinite snow-fleas
in deepest ruts and foot-tracks.
First time this winter.
The tree sparrow
comes from the north in winter
to get its dinner.
The unclouded mind –
serene pure ineffable
like the western sky.
Fair thoughts and a serene mind make fair days.
To be out and behold
the western sky sunset
these winter days
That is the symbol of the unclouded mind
that knows neither winter
nor summer
That is the hue that the purity
and transparency
of my inmost mind
That which is farthest off
is the symbol of what
is deepest within.
Some see only clouds there
some behold there serenity
purity beauty ineffable.
As the skies appear to a man so is his mind.
January 17, 1852
Today i see blue
in the chinks and crevices
through fine driving snow.
First tracks through the woods
I sink into snow more than
three feet at each step.
To see the sun rise
or go down every day
full of news to me.
Against a dark roof
I detect a single flake.
It begins to snow.
Keeping a journal
we remember our best hours
and inspire ourselves.
Walking on the ice
by the side of the river
I recommence life.
From night into day
I look into the clear sky
with its floating clouds.
A great many hemlock
cones have fallen on the snow
and rolled down the hill.
January 24, 1856
The fine tops of trees.
I see every stem and twig
relieved against the sky.
Obey the moment,
inexorable rider,
impetus of life.
Follow a fox track
to its den under a rock.
Sat here many times.
See three ducks sailing
in the river this afternoon,
black with white on wings.
I feel stinging cold
bite my ears and face tonight.
The stars shine brighter.
Winter was made to
concentrate and harden the
kernel of man's brain.
Clear mild winter day,
the warmth of the sun prevails.
Snow softens and melts.
“The year is but a succession of days,
and I see that I could assign some office to each day
which, summed up, would be the history of the year.”
"A book, each page written in its own season,
out-of-doors, in its own locality.”
~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2025
