#winter sunlight

[huariqueje]

Winter Sunlight - Otto Pippel , c. 1922.

German 1878-1960

Oil on hardboard ,  43 x 38.5 in . 109.22 x 97.79 cm .

[prettypretender]

[these-summer-nights-in-december]

Christopher Citro | This Is Today | 2026-02-02

[missedmilemarkers]

[sagent-of-chaos]

ill have that closet dinner

[adventuresofalgy]

When Algy woke up the next morning, he found that Jack Frost had been dancing about in the night, for the world had been decorated with a beautiful coating of stiff white crystals, and the grasses which had been sadly limp and soggy now stood proud and crisp.

No doubt Jack Frost's visit had been enabled by the clearing skies, for when the sun eventually managed to rise above the hilltops, Algy observed that it had an empty sky of blue all to itself, and evidently rejoiced in the unusual phenomenon, for it began to light up every little thing it could reach, including Algy's hair 😀

Perching on some frozen grass to admire the effect, Algy would have liked to linger for a while, but the ground sent a penetrating chill through his tail feathers and – although he had remembered to wear his warm new Christmas scarf – he began to shiver, so he deemed it prudent to move on, pausing only to recite a wintry poem to a passing blackbird who was looking for food:

A frost came in the night and stole my world And left this changeling for it - a precocious Image of spring, too brilliant to be true: White lilac on the window-pane, each grass-blade Furred like a catkin, maydrift loading the hedge. The elms behind the house are elms no longer But blossomers in crystal, stems of the mist That hangs yet in the valley below, amorphous As the blind tissue whence creation formed. The sun looks out and the fields blaze with diamonds Mockery spring, to lend this bridal gear For a few hours to a raw country maid, Then leave her all disconsolate with old fairings Of aconite and snowdrop! No, not here Amid this flounce and filigree of death Is the real transformation scene in progress, But deep below where frost Worrying the stiff clods unclenches their Grip on the seed and lets the future breathe.

[Algy is thinking of the poem A Hard Frost by the 20th century Anglo-English poet Cecil Day-Lewis.]

[juliamstarr]

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[monstersandmaw]

Little frozen Christmas tree, decorated by the spiders and the sun. Have a magical day, folks.