Wednesday
Nov. 29, 2000
Winter Coming
Poem: "Winter Coming," by Michael Chitwood, from Salt Works (Ohio Review Books).
On the back porch
the wind slams the screen door coming in.
The first time I learned the lesson of the seasons
was a Saturday morning in 1964, in my miniature rocker,
my father coming in with red eyes, my uncle with him
because my grandfather died in the night.
The sparrow cheeps in his tree.
The fence gate bats the post.
For every winter there is something pinned on the coat
like my name and bus number
the day I went to first grade
and not to the funeral.
The empty clothesline bows out the way the wind blows.
The crow is knocked sideways.
The wood stove sucks its teeth
and the elm sings in the fire.
The sway of old electric lines
makes the lamplight billow and fade.
It's the birthday of writer Madeleine
L'Engle, born in New York City (1918). When she was twelve, she and
her parents moved to Europe, and she attended an English boarding school in
Switzerland. She began writing professionally while raising three children
in an old farmhouse in Connecticut. Her most popular work, A Wrinkle in
Time, was rejected twenty-six times before it was published in 1962. It
won the prestigious Newberry Award the following year.
"We are not supposed to get over our greatest griefs. They are a part of what makes us who we are."
It's the birthday of composer Billy Strayhorn, born in Dayton, Ohio (1915). He started writing songs as a teenager and submitted one to Duke Ellington, who was so impressed he invited him to move to New York and join his orchestra. On his way there, Strayhorn took the directions Ellington had given him and turned them into the song that would become the Ellington orchestra's theme: "Take the 'A' Train." He spent the next three decades as Ellington's associate arranger and composer and, it was often said, alter ego. He wrote Lush Life, Chelsea Bridge, Lotus Blossom, Passion Flower and Day Dream - all favorites of jazz musicians.
It's the birthday of scholar and writer C(live) S(taples) Lewis, born in Belfast, Ireland (1898), best known for his fantasy for children, The Chronicles of Narnia. He was a scholar of medieval and Renaissance literature, teaching at Oxford and Cambridge, and wrote literary criticism, memoirs, religious books for laymen and even science-fiction. His book The Screwtape Letters takes the form of advice from an older devil to a younger one on methods of temptation. A Grief Observed is a memoir about the death of his wife.
It's the birthday of film director and choreographer Busby Berkeley, born in Los Angeles (1895), who loved spectacle, opulent sets and huge chorus lines. He once shot a scene which featured 100 women playing white grand pianos for 100 dancing men in tuxedos for The Gold Diggers of 1935. In Footlight Parade, 150 chorus girls turned into a synchronized swim team, sliding down water slides and rising on fountains.
It's the birthday of abolitionist speaker Wendell Phillips, born in Boston, Massachusetts (1811). He was one of the most transfixing public speakers of his time, and other speakers refused to follow him.
It's the birthday of writer Louisa May Alcott, born in Germantown, Pennsylvania (1832). She grew up in Concord, Massachusetts, took nature walks with Henry David Thoreau, and got her books out of Ralph Waldo Emerson's Library. When a publisher asked her to write a book for young girls, she accepted only because she needed the money. Little Women sold 82,000 copies within four years, a huge number for the time, and continues to be one of the most popular novels ever written. She wrote several sequels, and eventually published 270 works.
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®