winter – SALT CITY VERSE

A WINTER POEM

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by the talented poet and teacher, Mary Lee Hahn HERE. Thank you for hosting and I look forward to the poetry you share with us this week!

WINTERY WOODS IN CENTRAL NEW YORK

Those who live where it snows know what it’s like to open the front door after a snow storm and see, hear, and smell winter. Even in the midst of climate change, those days still happen and was on display this week:

IN THE JANUARY WOODS


All around, the snow  
painted the frozen 
branches white
this breezeless morning. 

No snow clumps 
fell with a thud from trees--
no snow Hieroglyphics
on the ground.

I saw no birds.
heard only silence,
and so I pretended
(because it seemed so)
that time had somehow stopped.

               Then soon, the drip-drop 
               of snow melt
               echoed here and there,
              .
               A squirrel flashed by,
               
               A doe and her spotted fawn
               startled and fled, 

               as nature spoke,
               inching it's way again
               towards spring. 
               
 
© Janice Scully 2024

POST CARD EXCHANGE

I received three New Years post cards this week thanks to Jone McCullough’s post card exchange. Thank you so much, Jone, for organizing this.

The first poem came special air delivery straight from Honolulu from Joyce P. Uglow, which I appreciated because her words were hopeful.

TRACKS AND HOPEFUL MOMENTS

The importance of tracks
in the squint of a new day
hopeful moments
moments of wonder
wondering why
words far apart
in the squint of a new day.

© Joyce Uglow 2024

The next poem came from Carol Labuzzetta with a photo of a castle.

RHINE DRAGON FANTASY

Years come and years go
With each New Year comes
More stories of old . . . 
Arrows, maidens, and drums.

Do you remember this time
Of castles and plunder?
Fighting on a riverbank till
The town is asunder.

Memories are stirred when
My eyes see the stone turret
Of the castle on the hill.
Watch out! Don't be lured by it. 

Knights and kings lived here,
So long ago,
Perhaps, Perhaps,
With a dragon in tow. 

© Carol Labuzzetta, 2024

The next postcard was a poem by Tabatha Yeatts accompanied by a painting of a dragon by “Elena.”

As the new year delivers the unknown to hand,
Fortify yourself as well as you can:

Repair your armor, pack a shield,
Stow words and memories that heal,

Keep compassion on tap and pour a deep flagon--
We're at the edge of the map, and here be the dragons. 

© Tabatha Yeatts 2024

We are not the first, it seems from reading Tabatha’s poem, to fight dragons. Happy Year of the Dragon!

Winter Morning

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Jone Macullough Here. Thank you , Jone, for hosting. Be sure to stop by and see what she has for us today.

This has been a busy week and I didn’t post yesterday, on Thursday, as I usually do. I wrote cards, baked stollen with my friend, Leah, and spent a morning at a day surgery center in Watertown, NY, while my husband, Bart, had a carpal tunnel release of his wrist. It was a minor thing, though no surgery is minor to the person who has to have it. It went well and we are so grateful to the medical and nursing staff who continue to work, helping people everyday in the midst of this pandemic.

Now we are ready to move on and soon, this pine will be ready for Christmas.

I hadn’t prepared for Poetry Friday this week, but I wanted to share something. so I found an old notebook where I scribble down things, bits of poetry I write or find here and there. I found this:

WHY COMPLAIN ABOUT WINTER?

moan about snow
lament the howling wind
wishing you were elsewhere?

Here is a blank page
a pen full of ink
whole worlds to think,

thoughts that have nothing
to do with January.

©Janice Scully

For me, winter is a time to slow down. I look forward to it.

I have more time to read, and I want to share this book by Omar El Akkad. I heard him speak two weeks ago at Colgate University as part of their Living Writer’s series. If you don’t know about this series, check it out. All the author’s talks and readings are shared on line and it costs nothing.

El Akkad is a journalist, born in the Middle East, who has traveled and lived in several Arab, so many that he himself has always felt stateless. His amazing book, WHAT STRANGE PARADISE, is about a Syrian boy, Amir, who washes up on the shore of a Western European island (probably Greek) and rescued by a teenage girl. If you ever wonder what it might be like to be a refugee, this author makes you feel it and understand the terrible risk taken by so many who flee, so many who are children.

Have a healthy week, everyone and thank you, Jone, for hosting!

Cows in Winter

Welcome to Poetry Friday, this week hosted by Mary Lee at A Year of Reading. Thank you for hosting! Make sure to stop by to see what Mary Lee’s got in store for us this week.

Want to know more about Poetry Friday? Look HERE.

Going for a ride for pleasure has become a rather rare thing lately, as there are few places to stop. But this week my husband and I drove south of Syracuse on back roads. The snow was gently falling, and we encountered a few cows in a pasture. They stood like statues, stopped by the cold. Or maybe there was another reason they were so quiet. They inspired a poem.

COWS

Lingering
this morning,

hypnotized 
by snowflakes, 
that perhaps, 
like a swarm
of fire flies
at night, sparkled
in their eyes

or was it the grass 
all around
d i s a p p e a r i n g
in white?

© Janice Scully 2020

I hope everyone is healthy. I’m looking forward to the vaccine, which really is a truly amazing accomplishment, though we must be patient. My gratitude to all the brilliant scientists that are helping us get past this pandemic!

About Snow

Thank you Michelle Heinrich Barnes for hosting Poetry Friday. Congratulations on a new Today’s Little Ditty! This is my first time posting here, and I am grateful to be part of it.

Our first snow fell this week, the first storm of winter. When I woke, the ground was white with and inch or two. At the coffee shop later in the afternoon, out the window snowflakes were falling still, but just barely, almost invisible. They meandered. It was the lightest of snows.

Like trees or the sky, there is always a story or a poem one can write about snow. Ellen Yeomans’ new picture book in rhyming verse, illustrated by Andrea Offermann, is about snow and what it means to three children.

The cover shows them full of wonder and expectation:

The story begins:

“Some snow is First Snow

We’ve waited for so long snow.

Is it really snow snow,

or only heavy rain? “

Many different kinds of snow appear in the text and illustrations, such as: ” . . . hit the ground and melt snow.” “Sleet Snow.” “Snow day snow.” The children can’t wait for it to come and stay so they can play all winter in the snow.

The narrative arc revolves around the seasons. Eventually, in the end, it takes these children to “Spring Snow” and “Please, please, no more snow” and a glimpse of upcoming spring activities. The rhyme is perfect and a joy to read aloud.

Back at the coffee shop, the snow I saw out the window was a curious kind of snow that inspired this:

TO A SNOWFLAKE DRIFTING DOWN AFTER YESTERDAY’S STORM

You’re an afterthought,

a glistening decoration,

spiraling down,

about to sprinkle the ground.

Since you are in no rush, tell me:

Is it easy to fall?

Does it take any effort at all?

Some Snow Is . . . by Ellen Yeomans, and illustrated by Andrea Offermann, celebrates winter and snow. I never tire of stories about the seasons. If you live in a climate with four distinct seasons, like I do, one has no choice but to embrace snow and try to see its beauty and diversity.

Find Ellen’s Yeomans’ book, Some Snow is . . . , here: