LITTLE GIDDING  by T. S. Eliot
(No. 4 of ‘Four Quartets’)

I

Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart’s heat,
Reflecting in a watery mirror
A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.
And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier,
Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire
In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing
The soul’s sap quivers.

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A gray day and in the night a lace of snow covered the ground.  Twenty nine degrees now. Surely colder days are in store before the days are visibly longer.  The words of Eliot’s poem captivate my imagination.

When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,

Frost reflects the suns light, seeming to ignite a fire in one’s spirit.  In the cold season do we not discover inspiration no matter if “the soul’s sap quivers”…?  The blaze of fire a reminder of the meaning of my life, of our lives “in the dark time of year.”  My mind seized by winter’s cold contemplates my journey, the purposes I meant to live for.

Today I shared with a friend images from two photographs which I had the good fortune to capture in 2022.  Both photo’s come from the starting line at Great Lakes Dragaway.  The first photo depicts a jet dragster immediately after launch, with the afterburner’s cone of flame.  The second photo is my favorite.  A Pro Modified Chevrolet pauses at the starting line, while the driver attends to the countdown lights of the starting tree.  There, when time had stopped, I took the photo.  Fire and fuel, momentarily to combine to become hundreds of horsepower, propelling the car and driver to the finish line.

Summer fire.