Poems can express our feelings and help us reorganise them. I am in awe of poets who manage to allow me to think differently about a situation with a few well-chosen lines.
This poem by Mark Strand takes us into those feelings we often have in winter, rearranges them and can help us utter a prayer to God to help us through what can be dark days.
Lines for Winter by Mark Strand
Tell yourself
as it gets cold and grey falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself –
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon’s gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight, as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.