singing sad and beautiful

Mountain Pines

by Robinson Jeffers

 

In scornful upright loneliness they stand, 

Counting themselves no kin of anything 

Whether of earth or sky. Their gnarled roots cling 

Like wasted fingers of a clutching hand 

In the grim rock. A silent spectral band 

They watch the old sky, but hold no communing 

With aught. Only, when some lone eagle's wing 

Flaps past above their grey and desolate land, 

Or when the wind pants up a rough-hewn glen, 

Bending them down as with an age of thought, 

Or when, 'mid flying clouds that can not dull 

Her constant light, the moon shines silver, then 

They find a soul, and their dim moan is wrought 

Into a singing sad and beautiful.

Winter Wool

Sheep in the Winter Night

by Tom Hennen

Inside the barn the sheep were standing, pushed close to one
another. Some were dozing, some had eyes wide open listening
in the dark. Some had no doubt heard of wolves. They looked
weary with all the burdens they had to carry, like being thought
of as stupid and cowardly, disliked by cowboys for the way they
eat grass about an inch into the dirt, the silly look they have
just after shearing, of being one of the symbols of the Christian
religion. In the darkness of the barn their woolly backs were
full of light gathered on summer pastures. Above them their
white breath was suspended, while far off in the pine woods,
night was deep in silence. The owl and rabbit were wondering,
along with the trees, if the air would soon fill with snowflakes,
but the power that moves through the world and makes our
hair stand on end was keeping the answer to itself.

Secret Sleigh Ride

It had been long dark, though still an hour before supper-time

by Charles Reznikoff

 

 

It had been long dark, though still an hour before supper-time.
The boy stood at the window behind the curtain.
The street under the black sky was bluish white with snow.
Across the street, where the lot sloped to the pavement,
boys and girls were going down on sleds.
The boys were after him because he was a Jew.

At last his father and mother slept. He got up and dressed.
In the hall he took out his sled and went out on tiptoe.
No one was in the street. The slide was worn smooth and 

slippery--just right.

He laid himself down on his sled and shot away. He went down 

only twice.

He stood knee-deep in snow:
no one was in the street, the windows were darkened;
those near the street-lamps were ashine, but the rooms inside 

were dark;

on the street were long shadows of clods of snow.
He took his sled and went back into the house.