Entry tags:

photos, poetry

(a) Rather chilly this morning and (b) Shakespeare
Woke up around 4:30 am and it was zero degrees Fahrenheit outside. Uh, at the risk of seeming very weird, I have to admit here that I have yet to turn on my house furnace (mostly out of protest to the outrageous price of propane of late). A frantic check of various water taps proved that none had yet frozen up. I then did a rapid, stategic placement of the three space heaters that I own in an attempt to keep those pipes from freezing as this cold snap continues. As I sit here now typing, with many layers of long underwear, warm clothing and my L.L. Bean Maine Guide parka (damn! my hands are cold ... and I can only find one of my gloves with the removable fingers), the local thermometer in this room is 37 deg. F.

What a cheapskate fool, right? Well, yeah, but, still, I guess I'm in training for eventually going to live full-time in my old tipi (after I get my kids to torch the house so I can collect the insurance ducats (just a joke, Nate (aka Pyroman), JUST A JOKE! (let me first clean out all the memories that are still left up in the attic, ok? (grin)))).

Anyhow, doncha just love Shakespeare. Every now and then, I run across one of his sonnets that I've forgotten (well, these days, that's probably just about all of them, which is why I have to keep rereading Shakespeare). As I sit here chilled to the bone and pondering whether to move to a Florida retirement home for my remaining days, I run into this gem:

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 73