Snow

White Wolf

White Wolf

The white wolf of winter
exits her den-warmth and
shakes snow from her coat. Flakes
fly, whitening the world.

She points her nose skywards,
clears her throat, howls until
cold winds blow their chorus
of crystals, crunchy crisp.

We cower behind wooden walls,
peer out through frosted glass.
The white wolf draws near and she huffs
and she puffs until door frames rattle.

The snow drifts climb higher,
blotting out the light. Night
falls, an all-embracing
Arctic night of endless
snow snakes slithering on
ice-bound, frost-glass highways,
side roads and city streets.

Outside, in the street lights’
flicker, snow flies gather.
Thicker than summer moths,
they drop to the ground, form
ever-deepening drifts.

Our dreams become nightmares:
endless, sleepless nights, filled
with the white wolf’s winter
call for snow and even more snow.

Click here to hear Roger’s reading.

Digging the Snow

Digging the Snow

I have had a snow blower for some time now. It means that I don’t have to dig the snow. I just get the machine to blow it. But what if the blower doesn’t work?

This winter the local radio station has been filled with stories about snow blowers breaking down, snow blowers catching on fire, snow blowers not starting, snow blowers breaking their shearing pins. All of this has been caused by the weight of the snow, its depth, the compilation of snow on snow, ice pellets on snow, icy rain on snow.

The other day, I went out to blow the snow. It was so heavy that I likened it to wet quick sands on the beach. I could hardly get the blower out of the garage. When I did, I couldn’t move it, forwards or backwards, without enormous effort. I sat on the back of my car and cried. Here is the related post https://rogermoorepoet.com/2023/01/18/luminescence/

For many people of my age, and younger, this is heart attack time. Blowing snow, digging snow, clearing snow, shoveling snow. I know the song – “let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.” But who clears it? Who digs it? Do you dig that snow? Hey, man, dig that snow. Cool, eh? Chill, man, chill.

So where did the snowman go? To the hospital with a heart attack? Who knows? But one thing I do know: digging snow has become one of the things that I fear. And why shouldn’t I? I am at that age when things happen. And here’s what I mean – https://rogermoorepoet.com/2023/02/10/and-if-we-fall/

No. I don’t want to become a fatality on the statistics page. I don’t want to ‘fall to rise no more, as many others have done before’ – a tribute to Over the hills and far away, that one. So, let it snow, yes. But not too much and let us avoid that bleak mid-winter when ‘snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow on snow’. Christmas Card whiteness I can take – but not the chest wracking heave of heavy snow, weighing my shovel down, puling me down, burying me.

Snow falls – what if we fall…

Snow falls – what if we fall…

There I was – with my trusty snow-blower blowing the snow – and I shifted gear to go backwards – and my glove caught – and the snow-blower kept on coming – straight at me – and there wasn’t room to manoeuvre -manoeuver – maneuver – aka I couldn’t get out of the way – and the snow bank behind me caught me just at the back of the knees – and I sat down in the snow – oh dear – luckily I let go of the gear lever and the throttle lever – but the machine was almost on top of me – and I couldn’t get up – so I called for help – but no help came – and I tried to pull on the machine with one hand – and I put the other on an ice patch in the snow and that hand went through – so I am sitting there – can’t stop laughing – and then my beloved appears – and she brings me my walking stick – and she moves the snow blower forward – and then she gives me the stick – in my left hand – lifts me and pushes – while I lift with the left and pull with the right – and I have pulled a cork from a champagne bottle more easily than I pulled myself out of that snow – but together we did it – and oh was I wet – I had to finish the blowing – go inside – and change my jeans – and I am still laughing at the thought of myself – sitting there in that snow – and I needed to pee so badly – as the cold and damp crept in and – what if there had been nobody there to help – or what if it had been windy and my cries had not been heard – and what if we fall – as so many others have done before – fall to rise no more – and what if – “if – if – if – if – onions climbed a cliff – potatoes would rise – with watery eyes – if it wasn’t for if -” and that’s what my grandfather always sang to me when I asked him “what if…?” – so- what if … but don’t answer – because we’ll never know –

Welcome Guests

Welcome Guests

They arrived last night, late.
Bright moonlight. Soft silence.
I neither heard nor saw them.

I awoke to moonlight on snow.
Shimmering stars. Orion
proud among prancing planets
sparkling in frosted air.

I looked out. Nothing there.
White wilderness of snow,
unmarked, but shadowed.

Dawn. An anxious child
on Christmas Day, I peeped
under the tree, and yes,
I cried out, “He’s been.”
I remember brightly
wrapped packets of gifts.

Today’s gifts: hoof prints
emerging from dark woods,
circling beneath the ash tree,
leading to the bird feeders,
and back into empty woods.

“Yes!” I said aloud. “At Last.”
And joy filled my heart.

Click on this link to hear Roger’s reading.
Welcome Guests

Comment:

Reading the poem aloud, I changed some of the word order to the rhythm of my speaking voice. It’s reading before an audience and hearing their reaction that tells me when a poem is right or needs retouching. Alas, those live readings are gone for now. Anchor, Spotify, Facebook, Twitter, and this blog are good, but not quite the same. But, for a rhythm and voice poet, who loves live readings and welcomes a live audience, they are better than that midnight silence under dark trees.

North Wind

North Wind

North Wind descended from the pole
sending its wolf pack through snow-
bound trees. Listless, they stood there,
then wind and wolves came, cutting
and shuffling, playing snap-the-branch,
chase-the snow-flake, and strip-jack-
naked. Wolves danced on their hind-
legs, round and round, shaking trees,
biting at branches, testing winter games
until trees stood naked, stripped of snow,
tresses and garlands gobbled and gone.

Oh the wickedness of winter, its cold-
cut cruelty, the lash of the wind, ice-
pellets hurled, picketing fences, pecking
a wild winter-song, forlorn in its fury,
its pace, its power, its reckless race
to hurl everything away, out of its way,
snow twisted, tormented, twitching
its snake-way down barren highways
devoid of secret places in which to hide
tender faces from the North Wind.

Click on this link for Roger’s reading.
North Wind.

First Snow

First Snow

Fell softly, quietly, soundless, in the night.
I knew it was there. A lightness in the air,
a subtle change in the quality of light.
Now everything has changed: yesterday’s bare
trees wear their winter dresses, frilly tresses
garnished with garlands of snow.

The deer will arrive, sooner or later.
They always do. They troop from right
to left, west to east, as day turns to night,
then troop back, east to west, in morning light.
They step dark and diligent, flitting shadows
beneath snowy trees, one after another,
forging a single passage from yard to road,
crossing it, then vanishing into dark woods.

I saw them one night in a midnight dream.
They stood on their hindlegs underneath
the mountain ash and danced, so delicate,
reaching up with long, black tongues,
to steal bright berries from lower branches.
They danced in a full moon’s spotlight
and filled my heart with joy and pain.
How I long to see them dance again.

Click on this link for Roger’s reading.
First Snow

Dance of the Snow Flies

Dance of the Snow Flies

“When the snow flies…” they keep saying.
I have seen blackfly, felt them nesting in my hair,
picking painlessly at my scalp, until, next day,
the itching begins and the bites get scratched,
one after another, until they turn into scabs.

But I had never seen a snow fly, hard as I tried.
When the geese fly… yes, I have seen and wondered
at their spring invasion and their autumn retreat.
I have marveled too at the goslings’ rapid growth,
those golden fluff balls taking first to the water,
and then one day, suddenly, they rise in the air.

Last year, in a moment of madness, I stood beneath
Aurora Borealis and marveled at the sky’s flickering
colors. The light became sound and it was then,
astounded, I saw them dancing, those snow flies,
dancing me senseless, in their rainbows of light.

Listen to the podcast here.
Dance of the Snow Flies.


Comment: “La Poesía se explica sóla, si no, no se explica” — famous words by Pedro Salinas the great Spanish poet of the Generation of 1927, who taught at Johns Hopkins University. So, I will not attempt to explain my words. They stand for themselves, or not, as the case may be.

However, I will venture into the area of the cliché and the commonplace. People use so many phrases without thinking about what they mean. To examine the cliché and explore its meaning is a delight. What are snow flies? And what will they do when that moment of their release comes about? When the snow flies dance beneath the Northern Lights on a late fall night in New Brunswick, they become visible to the watchful human eye. And now you know what happens “when the snow flies… dance!”

Easter Bunny

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Easter Bunny

I guess s/he came a couple of days early, but we didn’t think we’d get an early morning scene like this. Yesterday, the grass was starting to turn green, the deer were grazing the new tender shoots, the sun shone, and the world was warm and welcoming. I wonder if the Easter Bunny will be back on Sunday to hide those eggs all around the garden? There are certainly enough hiding places out there right now.

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This is the view from my chair at the breakfast table in the kitchen. I don’t how much snow we have down. They forecast anywhere between 8 and 10 inches (20-25 cms), but there could be more down than that. This is Easter weekend, Mr. or Mrs. Bunny. What do you think you are playing at? We cannot go to church, even though it’s Good Friday. We must stay six feet away from each other. We must walk alone through the snow, if we go out, and who will stoop to help a fallen child, let alone an old stubborn man, from a distance of two metres?

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And this is the view of the picnic table on the back porch. Dear Mr. or Mrs. Easter Bunny: didn’t you know that just yesterday we were planning to eat our Sunday breakfast out there in the sunny weather that was the delight and comfort of last week? We had our chairs out on that porch yesterday and we sat out there and read in our isolation, separate books, separate chairs, six feet apart. Mr. or Mrs. Bunny, I do hope you bring some nice chocolate eggs to the children this year, otherwise I might just recommend you for the annual party-pooper award because just look at you sitting all dry out there: you really make me mad, you mad March hare with your pop-eyed April stare.

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Comment: For any who think these photos are Golden Oldies, they aren’t. This is what we woke up to this morning, 10 April 2020.  Close to a foot of snow and trees leaning on the power lines. Luckily we didn’t lose power. But we fired up the insert, just in case.