Tuesday, January 14, 2014

"Suddenly the sky turned gray,..."

Indiana photo by Rachael Link

The snowfall in Indiana last week produced many photos on Facebook. As much as folks complain about the cold and snow, it is also the topic of conversation and photographs.

Rachael lives out in the country and just happened to snap this photo of the barn on her property. As you can see there are no footsteps towards the barn and the large bush is in the way of chores as well. I have to wonder about the farmer or farmers who once lived there bracing the winter weather to milk the cows, feed the pigs, scatter grain for the chickens and help with the lambing. 

The photo brought the poet, Melville Cane, to mind immediately. Cane was schooled at Columbia University as an attorney and worked in legal copyright. He died in 1980 just a few days short of 100 years old.

I hope I won't be in trouble to copy his poem here. Melville, I give you all the credit and my readers will love it!

Snow Towards Evening

"Suddenly the sky turned gray,
The day,
Which had been bitter and chill,
Grew soft and still.
Quietly
From some invisible blossoming tree
Millions of petals cool and white
Drifted and blew,
Lifted and flew,
Fell with the falling night."

Melville Cane

5 comments:

Philip said...

Now, that is a beautiful poem...a few words overflowing with beauty.

Philip said...

Beautiful photo, also! Thanks for sharing.

Unknown said...

This is the poem that I recited when I was just 8 years old at primary school. I've remembered it all these years and it's only now that I just jumped out of bed and thought " I wonder who wrote This?"! I am now 49. I have never actually seen it written down until this morning. Bless the writer. R. I. P.

Unknown said...

I also learned this poem at primary school and have always loved it. It’s lovely to find out something about the man who wrote it. Such a beautiful wee poem.

Opippy77 said...

My sisters & I learned this poem from some obscure primary readers book our mom bought us from a thrift store as little kids. We loved that book so much, we literally read it to pieces. We loved this poem specifically because it's so dramatic!

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