DECEMBER TWENTY-FIRST (being that shortest day of year)

 

DECEMBER TWENTY-FIRST

(being that shortest day of year)

Today, the sun rolls on the tops

Of the elms and soonest drops

Into the pinewood at the west.

The hens are scarcely off the nest

To scratch for hot corns in the straw

Before the umber shadows draw

Across the henhouse, and they must

Fly to roost in clouds of dust.

The cows eyes grow their biggest early

The ferns of frost renew their curly

Fronds the soonest on the pane,

The little mice creep to the grain.

While little ponds are hardly thawed

Before their surfaces are flawed

With new needles of green cold.

Farmhouse windows turn to gold

At barely half-past three o’clock.

The briefer sun, the longer talk

By fireside , where sweet the bloom

Of popcorn flowers scents the room, 

And the roasting herring’s smoke

Mingles with the smell of oak.

In the sunlight of old wood

Homely furniture looks so good,

A star shines in each scoured pan,

And it feels good to be a man.

Robert B. Tristram Coffin