∼
Porch roof dripping
Pling
Snow hills rolling,
Roiling
Huge sticky mounds,
Pounds
Weigh down shovel,
Muscle
Strain and pant,
Can't
Stop, I need no plow,
Now
Moving mountains,
Tons
Of sticky snow.
Push, slide, release,
Repeat
Legs plunge in to knees,
Seize
Moment to fall,
Call
Angel wings rise then fall,
Call
Childhood games echo,
Memento
Heart beats strong,
Song
Of blood and breath,
Breathless
Gaze into winter sky.
Closed eyes savour red light,
Bright
Ice cold seeps,
Creeps
Into aching sinews,
Blue
And white massage,
Message
Of snowy berth,
Earth
Sending strength from below,
Oh!
Joy of rest,
Best
When heaving snow.
My reference to blue in the poem is not a flight of fancy. When I gazed into holes in the snow, I observed blue light. I looked up the phenomena and learned that deep snow absorbs the red end of the spectrum, thus emitting blue light. Surface snow reflects all light and thus appears white. I never noticed that before!
For those who did not grow up in a snowy place, children (and sometimes, adults) make snow angels by lying in the snow, moving arms up and down; and legs in and out. My skirt in the picture was a bit messed up because the snow was deep and I had to lean forward to get up.
My odd little poem is an Echo Verse attempt in response to Jane Dougherty’s Poetry Challenge #18. The form originated centuries ago, in the 1600’s I believe. Every second line provides an echo of the last syllable of the previous line. I may have ‘cheated’ because I didn’t close each stanza with an echo. Jane provided this reference as an introduction to the form: Echo Verse.
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Ontheland 
I never knew what snow angels were—thanks for the explanation! Lovely long, cold…poem 🙂
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A chilly echo poem, which reminded me of past winters. 🙂
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A fascinating collection Janice, poetry, images and story. We can only envy the excess of potential water sitting around as snow. The occasional quick drop of rain is all we see week after week. However at the same time the cold must make it difficult to go about your daily lives/
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It seems that there is either a lot of rain or snow or very little. This winter has been quite dry up until now..but I realize you are dealing with very dry weather. The cold isn’t too bad usually– the worst times are below negative 10 or 15 (C) with a wind. I’ve been lucky over the past few days as the cold hasn’t been painful when I’ve been outside clearing the driveway and around the house.
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What a beautiful poem and I thoroughly enjoyed the echo style – I wonder will it make a comeback? I’ve often noticed the blue in snow and thought I was just a bit odd so thank you for providing an explanation. I can now impress all my friends! Oh, snow angels, perfect moments of joy! Especially after all your hard work. Hope your muscles don’t ache too much.
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Glad you enjoyed my efforts. I can’t believe I ‘ve never really noticed the blue before. It looks almost supernatural. So far my muscles ache in a pleasant way (let’s hope that continues to be true).
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Although I know shoveling snow is hard work, your descriptions in the poem made me chuckle. I love the rhythm–the stop and go of shoveling, dumping the snow, shoveling, repeat, and rest. 🙂 I remember my girls making snow angels. I don’t remember where you are. Here in southern NJ, we got a couple inches of snow on Monday, but then the temperatures rose, and we had heavy rain on Tuesday.
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The rest part of the rhythm is really important for a gal like me
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I understand. 😉
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I’m in Ontario, Canada. I wondered where you were when I read your echo poem. We’ll get rain tomorrow but I am not sure what the impact will be and more snow is predicted for next week. It’s quite a weather roller coaster!
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Ahhh–yes, you definitely have colder temperatures there. I’m near Philadelphia.
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Reblogged this on By the Mighty Mumford and commented:
HER POEM WARMS THE HEARTT—THE PHOTOGRAPHY LOOKS COLD ENOUGH!!! 🙂
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I echo the rest….wonderful job! thanks also for checking BY THE MIGHTY MUMFORD out! :)))
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Thank you 🙂 particularly enjoyed your poems and recent music highlights.
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These are the posts that make me miss snow. I always enjoyed making snow angels. Sad that my children will not have the same memories of it as I did– snow forts, skiing, snowball fights, angels, no-school snow days… I never knew that about ‘blue’ light in the snow.
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I often think of the joy of making snow forts while eyeing up potential locations. The blue light is surprising to me as I thought I noticed things as a child–that I never saw it as an adult in a dirty city doesn’t surprise me. Maybe your children will have the joy of discovering some of these things later on — meanwhile they have the ocean, gardens, rocks and much more I’m imagining. 🙂
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You are right Janice. They don’t miss what they don’t know and there’s plenty here to feast their imagination upon!
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That’s interesting information, lovely angel photo, and a very ‘well dug’ poem!
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Thank you 🙂 all that snow is gone now–sort of amazing how it comes and goes.
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