Warm Hands, Warm Heart
Conveniences like central heat
Are surely mighty nice.
One sets it at a constant temp,
And ne’er wakes up to ice.
It softly purrs through winter nights
And warms as if it had
A coat of fur to wrap a house
To make it cozy, glad.
But I remember olden days
When someone had the chore
To wake up first and light the fires
And walk a frigid floor.
Like fiery dragon, stove would blaze,
Its mouth a glowing flame,
And warm the room with its hot breath,
A beast just barely tame.
Its presence made a brightened room
On winter’s grayest day.
Because we huddled close around,
Home’s soul, it was, and stay.
‘Twas there we stood, like worshipers,
When coming from the cold,
As if we came to praise a god,
Toward it iced hands hold.
Though central heat may have its points,
It’s minus vital part.
It cannot warm my frozen hands;
Thus cannot win my heart.
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photo by David Ritter at http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/2dP3EOO/Warmth
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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2013.
I really like this (although I did initially read the first line as meaning “toilets like central heat”). I like it not only for the language but for the thought. The seasons are woven through the culture of all but equatorial people, but we risk losing contact with their significance. Mind you, central heating or not, I just spent ten minutes clearing snow off the car).
That must be an English “thing” since we Americans don’t generally speak of toilets as conveniences. Having experienced “outhouses” though, indoor toilets certainly are conveniences. Glad you liked it. Maybe the real reason you really liked it was that you had just come in from the cold and liked the very thought of heat. 🙂
Well, I’m finally back to visiting and reading. It’s been a packed week on my end, and while I tried to make sure I kept posting, I didn’t have time to really visit and communicate much. So here I am catching up.
I love, love, love this one. And I do remember those stoves — more at my grandparents’ and great-aunts’ houses than our own. They were special. And your words about the early morning chore of getting the heat going reminded me of a time when I was in the 5th grade, and we lived in a house with a coal furnace in the basement. My dad had to go down every morning to shovel in coal to get some heat going. That wasn’t so unusual in itself, but the only access to the basement from inside the house was a trap door in the kitchen floor, which was right under the kitchen table. Every morning, he had to move the table, open the trap door and descent steep steps to the furnace in order to keep the family warm.
By the way, your copy of my book is finally on its way to you. I tried to make sure it had a safe package to travel in, so if there’s anything amiss when it gets there, be sure and let me know.
No need for heaters here at the moment.
No, you’ve got the Big Heater glaring down on you. 🙂 I think of that sometimes when I’m posting season-appropriate poems for me and the rest of the USA.