Even though it's Winter

Please let's lure Spring. 

With our hypnotic stare.

Jamuary

Breaduary

Marge

Tonight, here, a very little snow

Hardly worth writing about

Still a surprise.

"Now I must go", she said.

I will write whenever I can.

If it does not distress you.

Q. What ring does a baby swan wear?

A. See comment

We asked the mother ship to bear

Us to a golden star, and there

Everything was just right.

In our stars we see red giants.

White and blue too.

Why no green ones?

The wind is cold,

and the birds fly home.

Winter twilight.

Flags should be ashamed of the beauty of the skies. Watch episode 1 to learn why.

The greatest poets have written lines memorable even in translation. Here is one I read for the first time ever today

I remembered it instantly (even though I got it wrong) after reading it here. And I was drawn there by a reference in Primo Levi's book The periodic table. Specifically the chapter on Nickel.

Levi himself was a poet, and a good one: as well as much else. But he doesn't come near "Death will come.." in my eyes, and the young translator of this captured an eternal voice.

Keep your toenails carefully filed. Then you won't lose them.

Entering the cathedral of Kraców, you can't help noticing, that high on the left-hand side, are huge bones, bound by rusty chains.

These, in legend, are the remains of the local dragon, Smok Wawelski (pictured below). The exact details vary a bit, but a long time ago this dragon lived in a cave lower down on the rock than the modern cathedral (and still accessible to visitors).

The dragon terrorized and ravaged the land thereabout, because dragons do ("fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, dragons gotta terrorize and ravage"). However, as happens often with  mega-fauna, open conflict with the interests of humans led to it being slain.

"Smok Wawelski" sounds like the dragon's personal name (usually not mentioned in dragon-lore). But Smok is just old Polish for dragon or snake (like "worm" in Anglo-Saxon), and the second part comes from the location, Wawel being the rock on which the cathedral was founded, post-dragon. So this was just the Wawel dragon.

"Smok" might be the origin — and it's controversial — of the word schmuch (and many variant spellings), which means "a contemptible person", according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The origin is the Yiddish word for penis (I never knew that before!), and it's a taboo word in that language. The possible connection is with snake. The OED records the slang term "trouser snake" to mean, well, penis.

Many scholars don't agree with this derivation. No-one will never know the etymology for sure: unless there is a continuous documentary record of a word's use we can never be certain where it came from: and in fact the origin of a word can follow two or more parallel strands. Given the taboo associations it's even more hard to trace.

The bones?

Coffins in the crypt hold those of Jagiellonian kings. Bones on the wall belonged to Pleistocene whales.

And I wonder where the name "Smaug" came from.

Credit: wikimedia