The First Poem That Broke My Heart
For the past week, another idea for my Poet Laura post this month was swirling in my head, but then December came in, bellowing its snowy breath on many parts of the country. So I thought, this needs to be about winter poems! Oh, and it was a winter poem that first broke my heart. Bingo! Let’s talk about that.
I was in eighth grade and had an inspiring English teacher. (Give a hand for inspiring English teachers!) I think I liked a lot of poems, but then, one really got to me. And it still gives me goosebumps. It’s Richard Wilbur’s Boy at the Window. Miraculously, I just found this recording of him reading it. You can also hear his sweet explanation of how his son inspired it. By the way, the poet died in 2017 at age 96!
The Boy at the Window (excerpt)
Seeing the snowman standing all alone
In dusk and cold is more than he can bear.
The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare
A night of gnashings and enormous moan.
His tearful sight can hardly reach to where
The pale-faced figure with bitumen eyes
Returns him such a god-forsaken stare
As outcast Adam gave to Paradise…
—Richard Wilbur
It’s interesting that the audience in the recording laughs at the lines in the second stanza, “The man of snow is, nonetheless, content / Having no wish to go inside and die.” I do not remember laughing when reading this, and I don’t laugh now. Not that there’s anything wrong with that—we all interpret poems through our own lenses. But to me, those lines are just the snowman being practical, and it makes him real, with a real concern for survival.
As I wrote last year in a Tweetspeak post about my Journey Into Poetry, what touched eighth-grader me was the snowman melting a tear—the very stuff from which he was made—for the boy. The snowman didn’t want to come inside, but he did want to sacrifice a part of himself as recognition of the boy’s love and vulnerability “For the child surrounded by / Such warmth, such light, such love, and so much fear.” I related to that boy, to both his sense of safety and fear. I loved the fact that beauty and not-beauty could exist in the same poem.
I don’t have a snowman poem, but here’s a winter poem I wrote after looking outside my window on a rare snowy day in Georgia, feeling loneliness and hope at the same time. My 32-year marriage had recently ended in divorce.
Visitor
A bare branch lounges
in my Adirondack chair
under the Japanese maple—
gray, elegant:
Comforting to me,
now without a husband,
a good omen
in my walled garden
cocooned by snow.
—Karen Paul Holmes
Your Turn
Do you have a fond memory of a poem that stirred your soul, made you laugh, or otherwise inspired a lifelong love of poetry? Paste it or share a link in the comments!
Or, try your hand at a winter poem. We’ll bundle up and read. 🙂
Photo by Jan Vanaverbeke, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Karen Paul Holmes, 2022 Tweetspeak Poet Laura and author of No Such Thing as Distance. “Visitor” from Untying the Knot, first appeared in Town Creek Poetry, used with permission.
In her former life, Karen was VP-Communications at a global financial services corporation, and she now works as a freelance business writer and consultant. Her ghost-written articles have appeared in many industry publications under executive bylines.
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Bethany R. says
Oh, I do love the, “Boy at the Window.” Yes, to what you noticed here, ” I loved the fact that beauty and not-beauty could exist in the same poem.” And the one seems to be richer for the other. The reality and imagination. <3 I love this poem. And a dad that would notice, empathize, and write a poem to capture it.
And then your lovely poem, Karen. Those closing lines,
"a good omen
in my walled garden
cocooned by snow."
Another mixture. Gray & white, encasement & bareness, isolation & companionship. Thank you for sharing this with us.
Karen Paul Holmes says
Bethany, thank you for your sensitive comments on both poems. I’m glad the post touched you, and I appreciate you sharing your reaction.
Bethany R. says
My pleasure, Karen. And when I listened to the recording, I was also struck by the laughter. I kind of understood it, but hear what you are saying too. It reads more quietly, and perhaps a touch more seriously than it struck folks outloud that night. I wonder if he was used to getting a laugh break there, or if it surprised him as well. The fact that he allowed a long pause and didn’t try to plow ahead through it makes me think he was good at going with the energy flow of the crowd instead of fighting it. Seems like a generous poet and person.
Karen Paul Holmes says
Yes, good observations! Thanks for sharing!
Lynn Rutherford says
Oh this is so beautiful!!!
The Boy at the Window is so magical … I’m my imagination, I can almost see his face!
The first poem I really “loved” was Wallace Stevenson’s, Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour
It makes me sigh in every possible language.
Karen Paul Holmes says
Lynn, that is a lovely poem, and did you happen to listen to this recording of Wallace Stevens reading it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QinUdniUXIk
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Your poem “Visitor” is so full of focused imagery. A simplicity that goes deep. I loved the poet’s recording of “The Boy at the Window.” I believe it was the rowdy Beatnik poets who first inspired my love of poetry. But, in more recent years, when I read the short poem “Lily” by Ron Koertge, I was moved and read it over and over. Sadness and salvation all wrapped up together so beautifully.
Karen Paul Holmes says
Sandra, “Lily” is indeed a moving poem, lovely in its simplicity. Thank you for introducing me to it. And I love that you mention “rowdy Beatnik poets!” I also appreciate your comment about my poem “Visitor.”
Rick Maxson says
” Boy at the Window” is a beautiful poem. I always loved “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” There were so many phrases and words I never understood until I was grown and pondered them. Here is a poem I wrote last winter.
Walking the Dog in December
There is a river in the air, she says.
The leash tightens toward a glade,
junipers and live-oak tangled
in a canopy, soft needles, pokes
of deer muzzle. The day
slants gray in the limbs, a puzzle
of angles, like Escher doorways.
She turns, her eyes urging
an observation into the space
between us, two deer watching,
completing the event, then
vanishing into waning twilight.
The year is on the move, faint
sound of months and days,
hooves sounding in a forest of time
from January when the puppy was new,
and our joy swept along, like lambent
dances of sunlight on the Guadalupe.
She teaches us with her nose,
seeing every lay and nudge here,
magnifying the small clearing,
as if what has walked nights
and days before us has yet
a presence to be considered
before we turn and head for home.
John Wills says
I love this. Being in the here and now as dogs always remind us.
Karen Paul Holmes says
Yes!
Karen Paul Holmes says
Rick, your poem is a beauty. I especially love this unusual image: “The day / slants gray in the limbs, a puzzle / of angles, like Escher doorways.” Thank you for sharing!
Megan Willome says
Snow Dance
Today would be the perfect day
to build a snowman fine
if there were any snow at all
or any chance of wind.
One winter afternoon I counted
snowmen—42.
All built by frosty morning
by evening—sky warm blue.
Each stands unmelted in my mind
with old silk hats new-found.
I cannot make December cold
but I can dance around.
Karen Paul Holmes says
Megan, thanks for sharing this sweet poem. Is this your poem or another poet’s?
Sandra Fox Murphy says
Megan … that quite a Texas image! So lovely in its playfulness and joy.
Brad says
In his grief over the loss of a dog,
a little boy stands for the first time
on tiptoe,
peering
into the rueful morrow of manhood.
After this most inconsolable of sorrows there is nothing life can do to him
that he will not be able
somehow to bear.
James Thurber
Karen Paul Holmes says
Thank you for sharing this heartfelt quote from James Thurber. The ending is a welcome positive thought after the painful words “rueful morrow of manhood.”