Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.

I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Monday, March 11, 2004.

Today's poem is by Henry Wattsworth Longfellow, and it's called The Poets Calendar.

We featured several poems in honor of Groundhog Day last month.

And if you were keeping score at home, Punksetani Phil, the eponymous groundhog of Groundhogs

Day, predicted in early spring this year.

And depending on where you live, that very much seems to be a reality, or me here in Florida, at least.

And the early changing of the seasons put me in mind of this poem, which is divided into

12 sections, each one devoted to a different month of the year. It is the poet's calendar,

not because it is about 12 different poets or about

poets at all, but because it is a calendar suited to poetry. It's full of mythological and

astrological illusions each month speaks in its own voice and pays careful attention to what's happening in the natural world.

And it's also a calendar that only a poet could produce.

So here's the poet's calendar.

January.

Janice Am I, oldest of potentates. Forward I look and backward, and below I count as gods of avenues and gates, the years that through my portals come and go. I block the roads and

drift the fields with snow. I chase the wild fowl from the frozen fen.

My frosts congeal the rivers in their flow.

My fires light up the hearts and hearts of men.

February.

I am lustration and the sea is mine.

I wash the sands and headlands with my tide. My brow is crowned

...