This was one of the poems last week on Writer’s Almanac.
The Cross of Snow
In the long, sleepless watches of the night,
A gentle face—the face of one long dead—
Looks at me from the wall, where round its head
The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.
Here in this room she died; and soul more white
Never through martyrdom of fire was led
To its repose; nor can in books be read
The legend of a life more benedight.
There is a mountain in the distant West
That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes
And seasons, changeless since the day she died.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Although I’ve never been a huge Longellow fan, I had been thinking of Rhiannon right before I clicked on the site, so this poem really spoke to me.
Of course, I had to look up “benedight” (it means blessed) and that led me down a rabbit hole where I eventually found this spoken version on YouTube.
The poem is read by Jean Aked, but I found it a little off, partly because it’s a woman’s voice narrating a poem from the point of view of an older man, but also because of her English accent; Longfellow was such a quintessential American poet.
Several years ago I might not have really noticed this, but listening to lots of audiobook has made me a bit of a voice “connoisseur”. There are quite a few book narrators whose voices I recognize when I hear them and I have favorites: Simon Vance, Robert Bathurst, Jayne Entwhistle. I usually like it when authors narrate their own books (like Bill Bryson) because they bring a special nuance to their own material. Occasionally I don’t like a narrator at all, which can actually sour an audio book for me. One of the most prolific audio book narrators is George Guidall. Unfortunately, the very first audio book that I heard him narrate was something I just couldn’t stand. So even after several years, every time I hear his voice it takes me right back to that dreadful book and I have to really concentrate to get past my negative feelings. But he is a very good narrator so I continue to try to get past this.
All this leads me back to the Longfellow poem. I’ve heard two narrators read it now and I think I’ll stick with the Garrison Keillor version!
It’s the story of your life. Who would you like to narrate it?
But nowhere are you warned about the thunderstorms. In the mountains and tropical areas of Peru, it’s rainy season right now. That means a lot of gray days and in Cusco, thunderstorms – three to four a week for a few months. We experienced a thunderstorm the first afternoon we were there and let me tell you, when you are 11,000 feet up, the thunder and the lightning is MUCH closer to you than down in the lower climes. It’s hard to describe the visceral feeling that goes through you when the lightning seems just on the other side of the street from you and the thunder crackles and booms loud enough that you cover your ears. We were touring a couple of convents during the storm, both with large courtyards and covered walkways; we weren’t actually standing out in the rain (which was intense as well) but close enough that the storm felt startlingly close by.
Trail Baboon 