January, the new born
New Year's Day is past, January animates the ball of the new year,
Blowing cold and warm, the 4 seasons will rhythm the twelve months,
It was between Nivose and Pluviose that the revolutionary calendar placed Janvier,
Snow that whitens the earth to rains that fall more abundant sometimes.
Starting all wrapped this month often ends a handkerchief in hand,
After the gastronomic feasts of the end of the year and the truce of confectioners,
January invites us to taste its offerings and gifts of happiness,
At the beginning of the year nature plays, glacial beauty, fatal beauty, at last.
The Winter General takes towns and villages in a vice, chilling the water of the river,
Coffering of frost the persistent robe of holm oaks, cedars or cypresses,
Clutching in his embrace of snow the hills of the hills,
Like a magician he decorates the countryside where the fires of the colorful dawn shimmer.
The fever rises, day after day the sun shines with the flower of mist,
The shreds of cold frozen waterfalls in silver stairs,
They hang sails of lace with dry herbs of the fields,
And hang ice cubes in "candelous" on the edges of the roofs in costume.
On its partition of logs the flame makes sing the notes in the chimney,
Melody punctuated by the plaintive cracklings of oak or acacia,
The tongues of fire dancers rise in slender valseuses,
On charcoal pillars that fall asleep in the "cantou" at the end of the evening.
In the sky the autan or the burle makes twist Goliath to pull of wings
Excellent sailboat, expert in aerial acrobatics, the ebony bird
Sieur raven taken from a grain of madness waltz for the one he loves
The shadows follow in a subtle choreography, loopings and candles.
A few sayings of yesteryear celebrate these first days of the year,
For Kings the day grows, a fool who does not notice it,
If on the evening of the Day of Kings many stars you see,
Drought in summer you will have and a lot of eggs in the chicken coop.
It was in this period that the Greeks honored the epiphanitic gods,
Christian tradition, on the day of the Epiphany, will incite the "Three Wise Men"
Melchior, Gaspard, and Balthazar, loaded with gold, frankincense and myrrh oriane,
To carry their homage to the new child, from their distant East.
Tradition has it that the Epiphany is the occasion to "draw the kings"
A figurine hidden in a pastry allows the elected one to be queen or king,
During the pagan festivals of the Saturnalia of ancient Rome and its surroundings,
The roles changed between masters and slaves becoming "kings of a day."
Hidden in its underground retreat most of the days,
A discreet and audacious little lady prepares her arrival in our woods,
With this taxon in the name of snowdrop, Hermes and the bell fairy are back,
Flowers of drops of milk, ring to make retreat the winter freezing the fingers.
If January is the month of good resolutions, so is the garden,
It is time to prepare the ground for the return of the beautiful days,
Fragmentation of earth clods, weeding and fertilization in pampered pens,
First sprays of Bordeaux mixture on roses and fruit trees.
Whispers of the north wind, squeaks of snow, winter is tenacious,
But what a pleasure to see its flowers resembling small chicks,
Their delicate perfume titillating our sleepy sense of smell,
The mimosa adorned itself with a deliberate debauchery of yellow pompoms.
For the dead season, St Vincent celebrates the winter sleep of the aged vines,
The two-eyed size selects buds for the grapes of the grape harvest,
In the wineries the vine growers are busy with the racking separating the wine from the lees,
The scab allows them to compensate for the evaporation on the part of the angels.
After St Nicolas and Santa know you the envy tree of the fairies,
With us in Gascony it is called "bèr", it is the russian vergne,
The Fairies of Gascony possessed the secret of the use of its oval leaf,
He asserted "the gilthead bream," the gilded stick of wealth among the herdsmen.
In the early morning the fog besieges combes, valleys and hillsides,
It crawls and slips into the crevices, then goes down the perilous slopes,
He swirls into a farandole to ascend into the sky, which is now darkened,
Then disintegrates, leaving to the sun to unwind large scarves in the color of fire.
In this ocean of cotton the wind dispels the last whiskers of whitish mist,
The pinkish horizon, with its shady ruffles and reddish coats,
The cold weaving its lace of the winter garden with its flowers of frost,
Its twigs of ice and flake butterflies that twirl like drunken.
L’ARIÉ….JOIE