Poem of the Week: “Winter Sketches” by Barbara Pelman
Monday, January 31st, 2011Winter Sketches
December
The rain has stopped and the sky,
though gray, is streaked with light.
One tall pine, a thin
calligraphy, sways in a morning wind.
The different greens: moss
on rock, the matte green of lawn,
deeper green of the tall fir
in the neighbour’s yard. And the oak
still clutching its brown fingers
around an agitated leaf.
January
When the snow stops, the sky
is a pale dusty grey
like the morning coat
of an aristocrat, the snow
a starched collar, immaculate cuffs,
and the tree’s bark is polished
like a patent pump.
Three branches curve with a white
shadow, the wooden fence
is capped with white, snow drops
in wet clumps, covering a waiting
green.
February
A blinding white, this foot of snow
and so still, except when a branch
suddenly loosens its burden of heavy
down, and then a spray of white and dull green,
then stillness again. A light snow still falling,
drifting rather, and a washed pewter sky.
The cedar leans its fat white fingers
over the fence, the summer umbrella
I forgot to take in, broken by the wind,
is now a white boat
filled with winter, floating on a white sea.
February still
Clear and cold. Even the first bird
this winter morning is white:
a small gull, in from the strait,
surprised to find a white river below her
beside the still grey sea.
Yesterday’s footprints have frozen
into deep valleys.
March
Green begins to return,
uncovered by melting snow.
It was always there,
of course. White patches
like a child’s finger painting.
Tree branches bob in green,
the pin oak clutches its withered leaves.
Mountains float above fog,
edged in white, and a bird
slides past my eye, too quick
for my morning pen.
From Borrowed Rooms
Buy Borrowed Rooms:
I posted this poem after hearing from author Jean Rae Baxter that the temperature in Hamilton, Ontario right now is -10 degrees Celsius, with 30 centimetres of snow forecast for the next few days! I will politely refrain from mentioning Vancouver’s current weather…
