Mount Kearsarge shines with ice; from hemlock branches
snow slides onto snow; no stream, creek, or river
               budges but remains still. Tonight
we carry armloads of logs
from woodshed to Glenwood and build up the fire
that keeps the coldest night outside our windows.
Sit by the woodstove, Camilla,
               while I bring glasses of white,
and we'll talk, passing the time, about weather
without pretending that we can alter it:
Storms stop when they stop, no sooner,
leaving the birches glossy
with ice and bent glittering to rimy ground.
We'll avoid the programmed weatherman grinning
               from the box, cheerful with tempest,
and take the day as it comes,
one day at a time, the way everyone says,
These hours are the best because we hold them close
in our uxorious nation.
Soon we'll walk -- when days turn fair
and frost stays off -- over old roads, listening
for peepers as spring comes on, never to miss
               the day's offering of pleasure
for the government of two.
Mount Kearsarge Shines
Donald Hall
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Poem topics: fire, never, night, river, spring, walk, weather, I miss you, pleasure, white, frost, bring, talk, government, hold, avoid, nation, stream, snow, time, Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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Write your comment about Mount Kearsarge Shines poem by Donald Hall
[email protected]: Mr. Hall is 'new' to me. I stumbled upon him at a familiar website. I relate to nature and weathermen in this poem However the repeated symbol in a few lines leave me with a headscratch. I'll give him a few more chances to move me.
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