Poem: On This Cold Winter’s Day

On This Cold Winter’s Day

On this cold winter’s day

The snowflakes seem to play

Like so many bugs in the bushes

As suddenly arrested from the rush

Of falling to the ground

They rise and twirl around.

Perhaps they are born aloft

By heat from a house draft,

Perhaps by a door opening

Or something closing?

Whatever it is, they rise

Like gnats but it’s only disguise

For again they downward drift

To the amazement of my swift 

Look o’er the piling heaps

That I will trudge in deep

To shovel them away

From the walk today

So that within this house

We aren’t trapped like a mouse

In the piling wrecks 

Of a zillion white insects

So perfectly formed on wings 

Of crystalline six strings

Like the musical guitar

Now silenced where they are—

Those little white flakes

Making sounds seem mistakes

Or frozen symphonies here

Not quite buzzing in my ear

In the silence of music 

Stilled somehow, yet so rich.

December 2021

About This Poem

I wrote this quite a few years ago when it still snowed in December and stayed around here. I was watching the snow fall outside of my window and I noticed how the flakes would rise in the air as if they were gnats, so I put that image to words as they gradually covered our lawn. The picture is a close up of snowflakes (the six strings) that I took on the railing of our deck. I hope you have a Happy New Year.