Winter Solstice

Beautiful winter solstice to all! In an effort to bring a little snow this way I'm posting one of my favorite winter poems by the late Stan Rice, who was a brilliant writer and painter - before his wife eclipsed him.

THE SNOWMEN GO TO SEA  -Stan Rice

The snowmen go to sea
In manly little boats.
The wind balloons the sails, The snowmen float

From emerald island to emerald island
With neither dread nor grief,
They drink hot chocolate
In shade of sails

And in the starlight sleep,
Starlight, oakum, creaking timber.
And on the storm the smell of mint,
Some are seasick

Others tender.
They bend to heave the bow about,
And their corncob pipes fall out,
And their carrot noses

Ride the swells,
And their coal eyes fall through coral.
Yet still they sail
Without fear or sorrow.

Then the calm. Their sails
Deflate. They laugh like carrion.
Their jaws cave in.
They wet the decks.

A little tragedy is knowledge
And knowledge of none is comic.
The snowmen know there is no craft
To reconstruct their crystal vomit

Nor fallen faceparts into masks,
Yet go to sea, to die on water,
Instead of on lawns as rotted clowns
In black top hats.

When I was looking for a melting snowman image I came across numerous melty snowmen sugar cooky designs. This one, I think is pretty cute.