Despite yesterday's bizarrely warm day here in Boston, this morning's chill reminds me that winter will be here soon.

I was in San Francisco for New England's first snowfall (thank goddess!) so for me the shock of freezing temperatures and solid precipitation is yet to come. But the leaves that I photographed only two weeks ago have all fallen from their trees and it's only a matter of time before the bare branches are covered with blankets of snow.

And if you're curious about the title of this post...

When I sat down to write this post, musing on the rapid approach of winter, the first thing that popped into my head was this line: Winter is icumen in, all sing cuckoo. Immediately followed by the thought, where the hell did that come from? Somewhere deep in the dark recesses of my brain.

Google is a wondrous thing. It didn't take long for me to find this minstrel's song on a web page by someone with even more time on his hands than I have.

Cuckoo Song

Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu!
Groweth sed, and bloweth med,
And springth the wude nu-
Sing cuccu!

Awe bleteth after lomb,
Lhouth after calve cu;
Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth,
Murie sing cuccu!

Cuccu, cuccu, well singes thu, cuccu:
Ne swike thu naver nu;
Sing cuccu, nu, sing cuccu,
Sing cuccu, sing cuccu, nu!

-- Anon. (Middle English, 13th cent.)

I must have sung this as a kid, when they still had music class in public school (don't get me started on that subject). It's amazing what the mind can recall.

So this time, it is Winter that is icumen. The cuckoos have doubtless left Scotland for wherever it is they go in the winter and some other bird is singing in the morning. But we can all sing cuckoo anyway!

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 8:34 AM