12 ways of looking at snow

This Sunday's writing prompt was 12 ways of looking at snow.

One

an arbitrator between autumn and spring

keeping storm scores and stats on plummeting temperatures

Two

a cat burglar, sneaking in on a passing cold front

stealing color, hiding the tricycle and the dog’s dish,

disguising the starkness of trees with fluff, covering its tracks

as it leaves

Three

a bully, sweeping in on a fierce wind,

a white fury casting cold spells,

spinning and dancing like a colorless gypsy

tapping its tambourine fingers against the window panes

Four

A blanket of silence covering sky and earth,

flung out and floating down silently

in heaps and wrinkles

Five

an ice challenge, wicked, cold, and inhospitable

hard as rock, unyielding even to the distant sun

Six

a nightmare like a thief in the night

stealing the familiar, leaving an expanse of

nothingness where light was

Seven

a gossamer dream, a fairy tale, a story of

eternal cold dressed in ermine, of diamond faceted jewels

that glitter under a pale moon

Eight

a blustery uncle, all noise and fake promises

who rushes in, pulls out his watch, and says, “I must hurry,”

as he dashes off

Nine

a lingering guest, one who arrives unexpectedly, expects a

room and food, languishes on the sofa with a hand to her head,

her scarf trailing across the roads and fields and tangling

in the branches of the trees

Ten

an artist with a monochromatic palette, painting with broad strokes.

Eleven

an eraser, an impenetrable veil, a swirl of opaque white, a myriad of genies

escaped and coalesced, their arms and bodies so entwined that no light

pierces their pallid shadows

Twelve

a silence so profound one can hear only his own heartbeat counting the seconds,

his own blood swishing to the same tempo of snowflakes falling on his sleeve

and 

In Terms of Snow

Tlatim falls like flour from a sifter,

tlamo slaps at the windows like white wings—

two mysteries enfolded in the word snow,

the very idea of which, penstla,

will become tomorrow’s deep drifts.

Tlun sparkles in the moonlight,

sotla makes prisms in the morning light,

while here in the lower 48,

snow merely drifts and packs,

powders the ski slopes,

blows itself into sudden squalls,

and turns to slush in the sun.

Eskimo snow terms from http://ontology.buffalo.edu/smith/varia/snow.html

February

Yesterday

I dreamed I was the wind—

shrill, harsh, shrieking around the corner of the house

scooping snow and flinging it

amongst the moaning trees,

and as in the way of dreams,

I dreamt I was the snow,

a flurry of helpless flakes

swirling, flying madly in three directions at once—

up, down, sideways, veiling the landscape in torn lace.

In the midst of snow and wind

I was a sparrow clinging to a bending forsythia branch,

feathers fluffed against the cold,

guarding my small, valiant heart

against February’s bared teeth.

And I became what hides behind the wind,

behind the snow, beyond the cold,

that which remains nameless in its vastness

its otherness, its unknowable self

except in dreams. That which writes the world

in symbols we struggle to interpret.

Winter Thoughts

It's snowing Again. Thank goodness. There's about a foot on the ground and an additional 6-8 inches is expected here in my cottage corner by evening. My garden will be happy come springtime. Snow is a great insulator and a good fertilizer. It's also fun to play in.

The little bird I thought was an albino turns out to be leucistic instead. When it alights on the feeder it is barely discernible against the white sky.(http://birding.about.com/od/identifyingbirds/a/leucism.htm)

Winter strips the landscape down to its bare bones...

then decorates it in shades of black and white. Still, if you look for them, you can find bits of color.

******************

Sunrises

and sunsets paint their own pictures against the often dreary backdrop of cold and snow.