Snapshot 12 January 02005

wednesday again
    winter storm
        warning

raccoon tracks
    around
        the frozen pond

fish deeply
    sleeping still
        insomnia

squires me
    long lit
        nights & short

dim days
    pressed warm
        against me

this dog's
    paws twitch
        & busy

in the garden
    one tailless   
        squirrel

sparrows
    pine siskins
        black-capped

chickadees
    piliated
        woodpecker

raven boasting
    from atop
        the tallest

spruce ice
    on tree
        limbs ice

on mine
    sleep
        a clumsy

skate
    on thick
        rippled

surfaces
    and now
        the snow

Comments

[Greg]

I like a lot.

[Dick]

I do too. Its fragmented lines & barely linked images capture perfectly the drift back & forth across the boundary between sleeping & waking.

[msdedi]

your poetry always speaks to me...love the clean words and images

[Cathy]

Very good poem but is it me or did you change the shape of it ? I thought it look another way last night. I could be wrong.

[Kimberly]

Lovely imagery. I like the flow of one thought into the next.

[Kate S.]

You have raccoons? I don't believe we have any of those up here ... but all the rest, yup, and they are what keeps this death-freeze at bay, I tell ya. There is nothing so warm-heartening as seeing a flock of black-capped chickadees swoop in to strip the black spruce pine trees in the front yard of whatever it is they are eating, right in the middle of the deep-freeze when everything is frozen in place like statues in a creepy, hushed museum. Or, maybe that should be: mausoleum? :)

Lovely poem, SB. You're my winter inspiration.

[Jude]

The poem's visual structure matches the tone of the poem and the feeling of a quiet winter's day.
Lovely. Thank you for sharing it with us.

[SB]

Cathy -- you are quite right, I broke all the rules and revised, repeatedly, after the first posting. This one took awhile to find.

Kate -- I was told that there were no raccoons in Juneau, but there was at least one -- I looked up one day to find it staring at me through the skylight. I hope it was not an escaped pet who could not care for itself.

Thank you all for the comments on this piece; I've been in need of encouragement lately, and you have provided.