ear packed with wet snow
as you walk home hatless
squeak in a field of frozen
susurration, place of foot
like someone scrunching
Styrofoam, whisper of crystal
as your ears bleed in razor edged
wind, the silent explosion
as the field of absolute white
blinds you and you hear forever
for once
Archives for posts with tag: Snow
skates crystalline, the pass
of sunlight to the corner
the zigzag impossible bank
direct to the rods and cones
exposition of white noise
as light crackles about you
crazy explosion of spark
leaps to sky zone, laps
your horizon and keeps
on going, straight to the
North Pole, more than magnetic
like neon flowing at your feet
It surrounds you, carves you
into itself without notice,
it is so smooth and tranquil
you are unaware it is happening.
Someone has thrown a mantle
of antiquity over your shoulders
and it feels good, as if it was made
to fit, while still white snow suckles
you away, little bright coal dropped
in a stream, ripples and steam,
all that you seem to be drowned
in the meaningfulness of sleep.
Soar, seek the feeling in fingertips,
fade faster, you fly toward the ineffable,
the inevitable.
An endless chain of crystals binds
you and me to time, creates caverns
of us, remnants of what passed,
breath of the storm in our ear,
strange words when we first heard them,
but now, so familiar, they soothe us,
until we are no longer aware we use them.
Sleeping in snow, we carve ice into a cave
that comforts us as if it is only us, asleep
with safe dreams, as we bind forever
to these frozen chains.
it falls so easily, each flake
so many and each so individual
everything it covers becomes beautiful
if you live with winter you cannot wait
to share it with someone who has never seen snow
it is impossible to describe
the fear, the beauty, the truth
laid as bare as you can believe
it is not white — it is blank
purity is cold — but snow is warm
you can live in a house of snow
the dull shine of street lamp, car light
dim filtered sunlight, is caught, webbed
rainbow in each flake, you can hold out
your hand and catch them, frozen rainbows —
stick out your tongue and taste them
roll them up into snow men that will burn
with the light of a million suns through the night
winter winds may blow but they cannot affect us
life is snow and repetition only perfects us
<so begins my eleventh book Winter>
Peterborough Poets 