snow

Listen for the Silence

Listen for the silence in the darkness

The perfect note we can all get right.

The snow falls earthward

Unheard, dropping silently and

Populating the land with stars of white

Millions –

Billions of flakes, binding together

And smoothing over the disparate,

Broken and unsightly.

For snow silently signals delight,

Wonder, happiness and harmony.

We look on,

Mesmerised by a world changed

Under a clean, white blanket of

Virgin snow,

untouched innocent forgiving.

And I wonder what would happen

Should humanity take a clean sheet

Stop its septic squabbles

To share a blanket of forgiveness.

Hush now.

Listen.

When you hear the silence

You will know we have got

At least one note right.

Photo and poem copyright Englepip©

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Picture the scene

Snow scene
Paints  times of nostalgia
Quintessential village landscape
Bedecked with a blanket of snow
The coverall.
Happy families skipping 
by the river path
To the kismet bridge
Beneath the star that was foretold.
And beneath the snow
Under that cloak of invisibility 
What lies there on a cold winter night of glad tidings;
Do you know?
Have you watched the homeless 
Beg in the shopping mall
And the destitute turn to crime
Or shoot their own stars
So they too can dream of fluffy white*
Marshmallow clouds in the arms 
Of evergreen Christmas trees?
Yet it’s Christmas, a time of winter cheer
Giving and goodwill; give it a thought.

I was attracted by this lovely snow scene in the barber’s window and in most of the small shops in town a different if similar Christmas snow scene. So lovely and happy and it did in fact raise my spirits to see it. However, as I sat down to write the poem twisted itself as I thought and saw that our preparations leave the poor and destitute even further behind. A time of goodwill and giving to others has been turned inward and made a gluttony of excess. In my local town the churches have thankfully set up night shelters for the 3 months of December January and February and Christmas Day itself promises to be special. I wonder what Christmas specials are happening in your towns?

  • Image from the Song It’s a Marshmallow World in the Winter: lyrics © Shapiro Bernstein & Co. Inc.

 

Words and photo by Englepip.

Daily Prompt: Snow definition – a dog’s perspective

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When a familiar landscape becomes a foreign field

Populated with overlarge, cold, white hominoids

Of terrifying proportions;  when missiles

Equally white, fly through the air – war of the juveniles

Descending slopes on their terrible toboggans

Squealing war cries of joy, fear and warning;

Alien world of crusty icing sugaredness

Powdery beneath the paws and scents and trails

Vanished beneath  a cloak of icy invisibility.

Beautiful covering coming silently from the sky

Like white stars and hexagonal doilies.

Lickable and likeable in tongue meltingness.

 

Words and photo copyright to Englepip©

via Daily Prompt: Foreign

Peculiar

Photos by Englepip ©

imageedit__5814905278Peculiar – that’s what it is

When wetness falls out of the heavens

to touch the trees and the mountaintops,

making pools on the ground ….

but such is rain.

Strange when the ocean recedes

And the rocks are exposed for hours

Before it returns to the same place to start over ….

As the tides come and go.

Odd when the leaves fall off the trees

and the branches wave like witches’ fingers in the cold

when temperatures plummet ……

in the Fall.

Unfamiliar when the land is covered in snow

And it drifts in folds across the landscape

Making everything clean and white and blanketed ……

in winter.

Uncanny when the wind screeches wildly

Whipping up the water into huge waves

Demolishing our world ……..

in a hurricane.

Bizarre when standing on dry land

leads to slipping and sliding as though on glass

And nothing is stable enough to be walked on ……..

without falling on the ice.

Peculiar, that the most natural things in the world

Our weather, seasons and tides can be so strange.

Peculiar