Uploaded on November 28, 2011
Aged rafters bend and sigh
Beneath the frosty hush of winter.
Cinnamon and chestnuts,
Apples, wheels of cheddar cheese,
Repose within the larder.
The latchkey has been turned.
An earthen-crock of warm molasses,
The kneaded bread beside the hearth,
Lend fragrance to the midnight hour.
The household sleeps.
I wedge a block of knarry wood into the flames;
Sparks brighten the darkness.
Ruddy frets of firelight
Burnish an old brass ewer,
A pewter pot and ladle in the corner.
On the gnarled-oak bedstead,
The eiderdown stirs softly.
I reflect upon the heft of seasons,
Voices in long twilights by the fire,
Infants bedded down, then,
Like seeds in the warm, fertile earth.
They sleep soundly.
I would have them prosper …
…ripen into the fullness of all things:
The lantern shall burn late tonight;
A blackened inkhorn rests upon the table.
Outside the cabin windows
Spruce boughs shimmer in the icy moonlight.
Reindeer herds are moving now
Over silent tundra and arctic forests.
And dark-cloven fiords, snowy spurs of wintry oceans,
Slumber in the starlit robe of night.
—Johann Moser
Most Ancient of All Splendors
11.28.2023: Poem by one of my college professors.