Flowers For Socrates

by NONA BLYTH CLOUD

It’s an irony that the things I like best about Christmas are traditions from places where Winter means snow and ice. The smell of pine warmed by glowing lights, carols full of cold Decembers, and hot Wassail in the punch bowl.  None of these are indigenous to my birth-state Arizona, or to Southern California.

Of course, these joyous Holiday things are deeply rooted in Paganism – Christmas has merely borrowed its older siblings’ finery. The Winter Solstice has been called by many names, but its ancient rites and customs are far more ingrained in the season than the America of Currier and Ives recognizes. Rites and customs that were already here among the first peoples on the land, but also came hidden even in the bosom of Puritanism from across the sea.

Without these hidden treasures from the past, there would be little worth eating or drinking at the Christmas feast, houses would be starkly bare of decoration, and even many a cherished carol would fall silent if its ancient tune were returned to the pagan bard who first played it.

An icy drear December indeed.

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In this poem by Mary Oliver, there is a hint of paganism in her imagined wind-bird, which brings us a kinder, gentler winter snow:

WHITE-EYES

In winter
     all the singing is in
          the tops of the trees
               where the wind-bird

with its white eyes
     shoves and pushes
          among the branches.
               Like any of us

he wants to go to sleep,
     but he’s restless—
          he has an idea,
               and slowly it unfolds

from under his beating wings
     as long as he stays awake.
          But his big, round music, after all,
               is too breathy to last.

So, it’s over.
     In the pine-crown
          he makes his nest,
               he’s done all he can.

I don’t know the name of this bird,
     I only imagine his glittering beak
          tucked in a white wing
               while the clouds—

which he has summoned
     from the north—
          which he has taught
               to be mild, and silent—

thicken, and begin to fall
     into the world below
          like stars, or the feathers
               of some unimaginable bird

that loves us,
     that is asleep now, and silent—
          that has turned itself
               into snow.

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