finding winter warmth

I can enjoy feeling cold, in very short bursts, but cold is only good when you know you can get warm again. A lot of the pleasure of being out on a sharply cold, frosty day is in knowing you’ll soon be warming up – the anticipation of the steaming shower, the hot bowl of soup, the blazing fire, the warm dry clothes. When I think of being cold and getting warm again, a small poem by T E Hulme goes around in my mind; it’s about a gentleman who’s fallen on hard times and is sleeping rough on the embankment of the Thames River in London, on a cold frosty night:

"Once, in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy,
In the flash of gold heels on the hard pavement.
Now see I
That warmth’s the very stuff of poesy.
Oh, God, make small
The old star-eaten blanket of the sky,
That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie."

When you’re chilled and cold, warmth really is the ‘very stuff of poesy’ and all of us gravitate towards it, even birds and animals. When I first saw Stephskimo’s photo as a thumbnail, I didn’t notice the pigeon staying warm by sitting on top of the light; when I saw it bigger and then did, it made me smile - that's one smart pigeon.  And last winter, my cat spent a little while looking out the window at the snow, and then decided that sitting in front of the heater was a much better idea.

gilly of the camera points both ways

finding winter warmth by stephskimo