Graveyard [Haiku]

snow accrues
on a marble headstone -
silently

POEM: Snowy Street [PoMo Day 14 – Prose Poem]

I walked a snowy street, quietly as the falling snow, a snow that melted under foot, not one that crunched - compacting. Everything was deadened by that not-so-cold snow, a snow that swallowed sound, a snow that would have shunned light -- had there been any to shun. But it was night, and I was walking in the snow.

Three Snowy Haiku

I
snow white mountain
orange in the morning sun
gray under clouds


II
a southern cat
learns to move through the snow —
never to repeat


III
in the fresh snow
a single set of tracks
curve to the left

POEM: The Ekstasis of a Warm Bed [in a Cold, Snowy Land]

-To watch powder cling to sill and muntin through the frosted panes,
but not be chilled by that crisp whiteness

-To slacken on the back of spastic release – lulled by discordant heartbeats,
while feeling that they — and all — are in perfect accord

-To drift into slumber with no urgency and to awaken noncommittally,
sinking ever deeper into mattress and mind

-To love the snow for its beauty
as much as for its lack of reach

POEM: Awaiting Winter [Sonnet]

The winter skies are drifting slowly in,
and soon the snow will begin to amass —
the powder settling so scant and thin,
accruing between blades of withered grass.

How many times will skies sputter, thusly
without it piling up or drifting deep?
Just coating soil like the world went dusty —
not snow one shovels but the kind one sweeps.

A child’s and an adult’s prayers differ.
While grown-ups are content to prolong Fall,
kids wish that winter will get here quicker —
but all wish Christmas snow will come to call.

“And when will snow liven our bleak doorstep?”
A question I once asked, but now forget.

POEM: Avalanche Prone


The snow fell everyday,
fell slowly and softly.
It piled into hills high,
making mountains lofty.

And avalanches slid
in rumbling certainty,
collapsing like poems
that grew too wordily.

Desolate Snow Haiku

boot crunch
‘a cloudless night,’
he concluded

 

old coat of snow
nary a track in sight
beauty abandoned

 

snow blind
trudging and slogging
pure torture

 

crust of snow
over dry powder
bone cold

 

drifting flakes
add a wedge wall
to a farmhouse

DAILY PHOTO: Snow Pockets

Taken on June 10, 2015 in Great Himalayan National Park

Taken on June 10, 2015 in Great Himalayan National Park

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Most of the snow that we saw during our trek last month was well above us, but we did have one day in which we had to cross through pockets of snow many times as we rounded a mountain at about 4,000 meters.

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DAILY PHOTO: The Snowy Side of the Mountain

Taken June 10, 2015 in Great Himalayan National Park (GHNP).

Taken June 10, 2015 in Great Himalayan National Park (GHNP)

The beauty of mountains is that they show so many faces in such little space. We were on a sunny mountainside topped with tufts of dry grass. Then we crossed over a saddle-point on a ridgeline, and this was the new view.

DAILY PHOTO: McGill University in the Springtime

Taken in March of 2011 in Montreal, Canada

Taken in March of 2011 in Montreal, Canada