Colors of Winter, poem in progress

rosehips in snow
rosehips in snow
Colors of Winter

Colors of Winter

Original sentence

The air was full of fine snow flurries, and the ripe rose hips were red as summer against the snow.

First draft

The air was full of crystal flurries
the ripe rose hips red as summer
against the snow.

Second draft

Air full of crystal flurries
rose hips as red as summer
in the snow.

January 2, 2023

(poem in progress © 2023 Bernadette E. Kazmarski)

I drafted this about a week ago when I posted this photo, just as a sentence, knowing I wanted to work with it. The photo was a difficult catch, the flurries in movement and the rose hips holding still and glistening. I tried to capture the feeling of the movement and contrast that I remembered, and that still inspire me.

I composed the first draft poem in the past tense as was the original statement.

Then I felt it would work better in present tense.

I think I’ll leave it here for today, and I know I’ll come back to it.


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The Call of the Wolf Moon

full moon through wavy glass
full moon through wavy glass
Wolf Moon Calling

I turned off the lamp
but light still shone,
my bed awash with cool blue
pulls my thoughts to follow a path
up toward the full Wolf Moon
the imperative solo light of January nights;
I hear her distant howl across the valley
and feel her pull on me
to follow her path
past the effect of old wavy glass
through the tangled branches of the spruce
to the clear cold blue night of adventures
that might have otherwise been mine.

A poem in progress inspired by the actual nearly-full Wolf Moon that shone in my bedroom window last night, so bright I could do nothing but watch her slowly move past the branches of the spruce, distorted by the wavy glass of my old windows, and think. My camera had captured the distortion in even more depth as it always does, as if it either wants to prove to me how my vision had dismissed the distortion of the glass as a mistake yet I should see it as it actually was, or show me how distorted my views really were. Those long, cold, quiet nights often bring reflections of could have beens and should Is, especially when the Wolf Moon howls for my attention.

My daily photos often inspire poetry or prose that I try to get back to and develop into something more finished. That’s what this site is for. So my hope is that I can collect these thoughts here and find an easier way to get back to them.


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February 2020 Personal Creative Challenge, Day 27: Winter Bouquet

dried wildflowers with snow
dried wildflowers with snow
Winter Bouquet

My daily photo today unexpectedly inspired some verse. It just began writing itself in my head so I thought I’d bring it here and work on it.

When I share my daily photos I typically write something about it, often just a mundane note of what or where it is, an identification of a wildflower or butterfly, or sometimes just a thought; sometimes an extended thought that becomes an essay or a poem. I go where it leads me.

Here is the original version:

In late summer, in the fullness of plenty,
I filled my arms with your brilliant yellow and warm green,
followed by bees besotted with your gentle scent,
burying my face into your softness, thinking of beds made of your flowers;
today in the cold, punishing wind, the swirling snow,
all decorations weathered away,
I could see your naked strength holding your essence outright,
catching snowflakes,
with faith in spring.

I had intended to talk about the spareness and simplicity of the scene, a pure little moment, but my mind went to the flowers and identified them as goldenrod and one of our native wild sunflowers, likely jerusalem artichokes. That made me remember what those plants look like in late summer when they begin to bloom most heavily, how I love to see them, their volume of stems and leaves and flowers, their light fragrance and the hum of hungry bees, and the contrast with what is left behind, the essentials, swaying in winter wind, catching snowflakes, holding onto those seeds of the future until spring.

I knew the words weren’t quite what I wanted, but getting the thought down was important. I had to move on with my day and wanted to let it sit for a while, then come back to it. So here I am. And here is an edit, though there may be more.

In the heat of late summer,
in the fullness of plenty,
I filled my arms with your brilliant yellow and tender green
amid the hum of bees besotted with your gentle scent,
buried my face in your softness, thinking of beds made of your flowers;
today in the cold, punishing wind, the swirling snow,
all ornament weathered away,
I could see your naked strength as you held your essence in your outstretched hands,
catching snowflakes,
with faith in spring.

It became a sort of love poem too, with an intimacy in the imagery. But isn’t that what nature is all about?

I think that’s good for now..

I began this year with a pledge to myself and my art: To be certain I won’t let ideas pass me by I’m setting myself up for a personal painting challenge in February, similar to the painting challenges I’ve participated in in past years. I aspire (but don’t expect) to create a painting or sketch every day in the month, to be posted on my blog each day.

This is my work from Day 27. See other creative efforts in this and other creative challenges on the page Creative Challenges on www.PortraitsOfAnimals.net.


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Friendship Friday.

Poem for Saturday: A Little Thaw

A Little Thaw

The silence of ice
hard-smooth glaringly mocking
a manufactured perfection
life, birth, spring
held captive in plain view
under a solid clear glaze
pale world strangely hushed
I tiptoe through
afraid to break the surface with my sound
but a snap, a crack, a drip, another
whispers return to life around me
once broken, the ice cannot hold its captives
dripping, pattering, babbling
life begins again
the stream torrent rushing
beneath the clear, fragile, broken cage of its captor.

poem copyright 2011 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski


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Snow in the Cemetery, a Sacred Spot

Snow in the Cemetery
Snow in the Cemetery
Snow in the Cemetery

How many snowfalls have gently covered this ground,
How many summer sunsets flared against the rock of this cliff,
How many feet have trod this sacred spot, human and animal alike,
Stood on this outcropping as I do today
feeling history beneath my feet
in the remains of recent generations
and from the millennia.

The land, carved by the wiles of nature through the past,
stretches out before me, opening
into the hills and valleys of the future
and I wonder,
have all the watchers felt the same exhilaration
at the potential of the unknown
and, so moved, place their beloveds’ remains in this high cliff
so that they could still watch eternity unfold
beneath a comforting blanket of snow?

poem Snow in the Cemetery ©2011 Bernadette E. Kazmarski

How many snowfalls have blanketed this site in Carnegie, white flakes silently falling all around and filling the valley seen from this cliff?

Currently, it’s Ross Colonial Cemetery, named so for the Ross family of settlers around the time of the Revolutionary War and it contains graves and headstones that date from that time as well as more recent ones.

But the site has been a lookout for millennia. One can stand on the cliff’s edge and see most of the valley containing Carnegie and the oxbow of Chartiers Creek as it enters and leaves town. My mother told me her brothers and others found Native American artifacts in this area.

Standing there in any weather, I can feel the history beneath my feet, the land unchanged by time, holding the memories of all the watchers, like me, looking off into the distance of the valley and of history.


Read more:   Essays   ♦  Short Stories  ♦  Poetry

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Poem for Saturday: A Little Thaw

A Little Thaw

The silence of ice
hard-smooth glaringly mocking
a manufactured perfection
life, birth, spring
held captive in plain view
under a solid clear glaze
pale world strangely hushed
I tiptoe through
afraid to break the surface with my sound
but a snap, a crack, a drip, another
whispers return to life around me
once broken, the ice cannot hold its captives
dripping, pattering, babbling
life begins again
the stream torrent rushing
beneath the clear, fragile, broken cage of its captor.

poem copyright 2011 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski


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Poem for Saturday: The Last Red Berries

The ast Red Berries

What gentle lesson I learn from this nightshade,
unwanted in its habitat, its toxins legendary,
growing as it is from a crack in the pavement
no other greenery but itself for comfort,
facing unprotected the wind and cold and precipitation
splashed with road salt and motor oil and antifreeze,
yet gracefully spreading tangled limbs against the snow and
offering its berries to birds,
who tolerate its poison and disperse its seeds,
one of the last food sources available
after a long winter,
and patiently waiting for spring.

Surely in all this, all have our place in the story.

poem copyright 2010 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

The ground still covered with a foot of snow, the streets with ice, in March, I would have thought anything edible had already been eaten. I walked my errands to Main Street especially then because the streets were crowded with piles of snow, and no parking spaces were available.

But as the snow melted there emerged bright red berries, plump and shiny, held over from last autumn. I took an eyeful of those berries, and many photos, so inspired by their tenacity, thinking of how nightshade is usually ripped out yet here would likely save the lives of a few backyard birds because it had been missed. It waited with dignity to fulfill its role.


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Poem for Saturday: Snow in the Cemetery

Snow in the Cemetery

How many snowfalls have gently covered this ground,
How many summer sunsets flared against the rock of this cliff,
How many feet have trod this sacred spot, human and animal alike,
Stood on this outcropping as I do today
feeling history beneath my feet
in the remains of recent generations
and from the millennia.

The land, carved by the wiles of nature through the past,
stretches out before me, opening
into the hills and valleys of the future
and I wonder,
have all the watchers felt the same exhilaration
at the potential of the unknown
and, so moved, place their beloveds’ remains in this high cliff
so that they could still watch eternity unfold
beneath a comforting blanket of snow?

poem Snow in the Cemetery ©2011 Bernadette E. Kazmarski

How many snowfalls have blanketed this site in Carnegie, white flakes silently falling all around and filling the valley seen from this cliff?

Currently, it’s Ross Colonial Cemetery, named so for the Ross family of settlers around the time of the Revolutionary War and it contains graves and headstones that date from that time as well as more recent ones.

But the site has been a lookout for millennia. One can stand on the cliff’s edge and see most of the valley containing Carnegie and the oxbow of Chartiers Creek as it enters and leaves town. My mother told me her brothers and others found Native American artifacts in this area.

Standing there in any weather, I can feel the history beneath my feet, the land unchanged by time, holding the memories of all the watchers, like me, looking off into the distance of the valley and of history.


Read more:   Essays   ♦  Short Stories  ♦  Poetry

All Rights Reserved.   ♦   © Bernadette E. Kazmarski   ♦   PathsIHaveWalked.com

SUPPORT MY WRITING

Visit my PATREON page.

Pussy Willow in the Snow

Pussy Willow in the Snow

Imagine the pussy willow flower,
a soft white catkin bursting open its
hard, protective shell
swelling into a furry powderpuff
sprouting yellow pollen fronds
attracting the season’s first buzzing bees.

They’ll do this sometimes
during a one-day thaw
so eager are they for life,
ignoring ice and snow still hanging on their shells
and temperatures too low to sustain life,
breaking open their carapace
to the warm caress of winter sun
yet they’ll survive through later storms
for the real life-giving sun of spring.

Who would think such a tiny, soft flower
would have the strength to break apart its hard shell
and then survive in such inhospitable conditions?

Enjoy the respite in the storm
keep protected from the elements
but not so well protected
that you miss the rare winter sun
caressing your face.

Poem, Pussy Willow in the Snow by Bernadette E. Kazmarski © 2011, may not be reproduced in any way without express written permission of the author. Links to this page are fine.


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All Rights Reserved.   ♦   © Bernadette E. Kazmarski   ♦   PathsIHaveWalked.com

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A Winter Sunset

A Winter Sunset

Soft colorful sky
soaring, trees black rough earth
bound; winter sunset.

Poem, Haiku, A Winter Sunset by Bernadette E. Kazmarski © 2013,  may not be reproduced in any way without express written permission of the author. Links to this page are fine.

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