Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening

I'm not normally a poetry fan, but there is something incomparable about Robert Frost. On this, the shortest day of the year, I thought one of his most famous poems was apropos.

Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.   
His house is in the village though;   
He will not see me stopping here   
To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   
To stop without a farmhouse near   
Between the woods and frozen lake   
The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   
To ask if there is some mistake.   
The only other sound’s the sweep   
Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep.

Christmas Eve on the ranch

A reader sent this. It's posted on the Lehman's website. I thought it was great!
______________________

‘Twas the night before Christmas and out on the ranch
The pond was froze over and so was the branch.

The snow was piled up belly-deep to a mule.
The kids were all home on vacation from school.

And happier young folks you never did see
Just all sprawled around a-watchin’ TV.

Then suddenly, sometime around 8 o’clock,
There came a surprise that gave them a shock!

The power went off, and the TV went dead!
When Grandpa came in from out at the shed

With an armload of wood, the house was all dark.
“Just what I expected,” they heard him remark.

“Them power line wires must be down from the snow.
Seems sorter like times on the ranch long ago.”

“I’ll hunt up some candles,” said Mom. “With their light,
And the fireplace, I reckon we’ll make out all right.”

The teenagers all seemed enveloped in gloom.
Then Grandpa came back from a trip to his room,

Uncased his old fiddle and started to play
That old Christmas song about bells on a sleigh.

Mom started to sing, and first thing they knew
Both Pop and the kids were all singing it, too.

They sang Christmas carols, they sang “Holy Night,”
Their eyes all a-shine in the ruddy firelight.

They played some charades Mom recalled from her youth,
And Pop read a passage from God’s Book of Truth.

They stayed up till midnight, and would you believe,
The youngsters agreed ’twas a fine Christmas Eve.

Grandpa rose early, sometime before dawn;
And when the kids wakened, the power was on.

“The power company sure got the line repaired quick,”
Said Grandpa; and no one suspected his trick.

Last night, for the sake of some old-fashioned fun,
He had pulled the main switch, the old Son-of-a-Gun!

-Anonymous

The frost is on the pumpkin....

Last week someone had tied a pretty fall diorama near the neighborhood mailboxes.  This week the unknown decorator put up a new display, and turned his or her hand toward poetry:

Perhaps it's not Keats, but it sure was delightful.