|
Robert Lindner
Change of Subject
A winter poem to warm you up
Settling In On A Winter’s day
“I've got sunshine on a cloudy day and when it's
cold outside, well I've got the month of May”
My Girl by Smokey Robinson and Ronald White
“All the leaves are brown and the sky is gray.
I've been for a walk on a winter's day.
I'd be safe and warm if I was in L.A.
California dreaming on such a winter's day.”
California Dreamin’ by John and Michelle Philips
Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter.
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here.
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun.
And I say it's all right.
Here Comes the Sun by George Harrison
As I look out at a gray winter sky,
The cold is settling in and so am I,
On the bitter bottom of winter days,
When the cold comes and stays and stays.
With long slides to the bottom of the hill,
When the winter comes, as it always will.
And it’s below freezing, so snow will stay
Frozen until the next thaw comes our way.
And the temperature begins climbing
Back up the hill toward chimeric spring,
With part winter’s cold and part summer’s heat.
Just spring, but there’s still winter to complete
Its ways, another year begins and each day
Is too cold and I’m old so I will stay
Inside where it’s warm and drink tea with rum
And write poems about how winter’s come
Again. Each different and each the same,
More or less, as the earth tilts in its frame
And earth’s pole goes dark and cold once again
And polar cold sinks down to me and then
Comes winter and I drink my rummy tea
With cake and write some crumbly poetry
And I think that spring will come soon because
Time is relative. As fast as it was
Winter, it is spring again. It will be
Yesterday when tomorrow comes to me.
Great Expectations, it’s a good story
For believing in spring’s coming and we
Shall read it, while we wait for winter to do
What winters do. There is nothing new
About the gray and gloomy days, and snow
And cold or even getting old, I know,
But I’m still here and it’s another year
And another winter’s gray day to peer
Through the window and watch the flurries fly.
Just a dusting blowing round a winter’s sky,
As cold is settling in and so am I,
With cake and crumbly poetry and my
Rummy tea, settling in to wait for spring,
I close my eyes and begin imagining.
Day dreaming on a winter’s day, a song
Of dreams of warm L.A., I hum along
With the Mommas and the Pappas “on such
A winter’s day” and it doesn’t take too much
To dream the winter away into May.
Then “I’ve got Sunshine on a Cloudy Day.”
And pretty soon both hum and day is done,
And night’s come and gone and, “Here Comes the Sun.”
It’s still cold, I’m still old, but the sky is blue.
Before the sky does what winter skies do,
Turn to gray again, I’d better go out
And see the sunlight while it’s still about.
I can settle in again when the gray
Returns as it will on a winter’s day.
Settling in on a winter’s day with tea
And poetry and rum and hum and me.
So won’t you come and escape from the gray.
Settle in with me on a winter’s day.
We’ll play some warm tunes till day turns to night
Till “here comes the sun. And I say it's all right.”
|
