Madeleine L'Engle's "The Winter Is Cold, Is Cold"

The Daily Poem

Goldberry Studios

Education For Kids, Arts, Kids & Family

4.6 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2020

⏱️ 6 minutes

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Summary

Madeleine L’Engle, original name in full Madeleine L’Engle Camp, married name Madeleine Franklin, (born November 29, 1918, New York, New York, U.S.—died September 6, 2007, Litchfield, Connecticut), American author of imaginative juvenile literature that is often concerned with such themes as the conflict of good and evil, the nature of God, individual responsibility, and family life. -- Bio via Britannica.com

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to The Daily Poem. I'm David Kern, and today is Friday, December 4th, 2020.
0:06.5	Today's poem is by an American writer of fiction and nonfiction and poetry and essays and, you know, Christian reflections, and her name is Madeline Lingle.
0:17.2	She's known primarily for books like A Wrinkle in Time Time as well as memoirs like A Circle of Quiet,
0:23.3	The Rational Season, Two-Part an Invention, lots of spiritual writing like Walking on Water.
0:29.3	But she was also a poet, and she's got a couple of great collections, but one in particular
0:33.6	is a winter song, Christmas readings, which she produced with Lucy Shaw and there's also
0:38.8	a book called The Ordering of Love, the new and collected poems of Madeline Langel which came out in
0:43.0	2005 has nearly 200 poems and it's really worth grabbing. The poem that I'm going to read today is called
0:49.3	The Winter is Cold is Cold. This is how it goes. The winter is cold. The winter is cold, is cold. This is how it goes.
0:59.4	The winter is cold, is cold.
1:02.9	All spent and keeping warm.
1:06.4	Has joy been frozen too?
1:13.5	I blow upon my hands stiff from the biting wind. My heart beats slow.
1:16.4	Beats slow.
1:19.0	What has become of joy?
1:21.5	If joy is gone from my heart, then it's closed to you who made it, gave it life. If I protect myself, I'm hiding, Lord, from you.
1:31.3	How we defend ourselves in ancient suits of mail. Protected from the sword, shrinking from
1:38.2	the wound, we look for happiness, small, safety-seeking, dulled, selfish, exclusive,
1:43.6	interned, elusive, dulled, selfish, exclusive, interned.
1:45.6	Elusive, evasive, peace comes only when it's not sought.
1:53.4	Help me forget the cold that grips the grasping world.
1:57.2	Let me stretch out my hands to purifying fire, clutching fingers uncurled.
	...

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