I wrote this poem last winter, and gave it to my husband, whose birthday follows New Year’s Day. The poem recalls the harshest winter we ever faced as a couple, back in 2010. Years after my childhood days, when I longed for snow, it visited in blankets and stayed for two weeks. What I wasn’t prepared for was the lack of light, the lack of noise.

A picture from that time surfaced – it was of my husband, wrapped up against a Christmas card background.  I was instantly struck by how happy he looked.  It seems that snow really does have a magic all of its own, despite the challenges it can bring.  Happy Christmas Eve, everyone!

Snow Picture

I found your smile
in a snow picture —
you must have been twenty-six.

We weren’t married
but felt we’d eloped
to a green land dipped in stars.

Icicles dived from the roof
of your shed, captured
to see through perfection.

Grass shivered under
a square of new world,
hemmed in, pressed down, wintered.

Cows approached us in
stealthy bewilderment,
eyes making blue of the glare.

No noise escaped them
as we crunched on layers,
finding no sun in the white-out sky.

No place this silent contained us since.
We have moved into sound and colour,

lost what was young
and unknown in ourselves,
traded for learned life, warm love.

K. S. Moore