“The Poet’s Calendar” (February) – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Facsimile of February:
Farmyard Scene with Peasants“
___________
if there are paintings about February,
there must be poems about February,
I thought, hence the following entry,
though preceded by a belated January,
or Janus, as it turns out, held back by
nothing other, surely, than the “fields
with snow”, the “frosts”, and the
fowl-filled “frozen fen”
both are from a very calendar of
poems by Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow, whom I’ve always
imagined tall, however
inappropriate, kind of like thinking
that because my name is Richard
I’m rich
it’s called, appropriately enough,
The Poet’s Calendar, just click
January
Janus am I; oldest of potentates;
Forward I look, and backward, and below
I count, as god of avenues and gates,
The years that through my portals come and go.
I block the roads, and drift the fields with snow;
I chase the wild-fowl from the frozen fen;
My frosts congeal the rivers in their flow,
My fires light up the hearths and hearts of men.
February
I am lustration, and the sea is mine!
I wash the sands and headlands with my tide;
My brow is crowned with branches of the pine;
Before my chariot-wheels the fishes glide.
By me all things unclean are purified,
By me the souls of men washed white again;
E’en the unlovely tombs of those who died
Without a dirge, I cleanse from every stain.
March will have to wait
Richard
psst: lustration is a purification, Janus, the
god with two faces, who can see
backwards and forwards, fen,
marshland
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