Three Poems on Snow to Keep You Warm This Winter

Snowflakes

By Cheryl Corey

Now soft and white the snowflake clusters fall.
The wind picks up and blusters. Millions drift
Like powdered sugar shaken by a baker’s sift,
All the same to the naked eye. A fractal,

However, proves that’s not the case. Each flake
Was once a microscopic hexagon
Of radial arms; then having undergone
A transformation, what you see will make

You gaze in wonder: plates and planes and columns
Of crystal facets; fern-like fronds as delicate
As feathers; needles, pearls of rime; intricate
Designs of icy, geometric blossoms,

No two alike, reflecting the spectrum of light
To give us snow, now falling soft and white.

Cheryl Corey is a Connecticut poet. She is also an author of short stories, a novella, and recently completed a novel.

Snow in Buffalo

By Phil S. Rogers

Six feet of snow in Buffalo
I guess it’s only apropos,
but makes me crave a bungalow
somewhere deep in Mexico.

To dance a lively fandango
on a warm and sunlit patio,
good music on the radio,
not wrapped up like an Eskimo.

Even a flight to Borneo,
so not to have to shovel snow,
would fill me with a golden glow,
and surely help my lumbago.

But all these trips I must forego,
alas, they’re not the status quo;
my bank account is really low,
can’t even get to Tuckahoe.

Phil S. Rogers is a sixth generation Vermonter, age 72, now retired, and living in Texas. He served in the United States Air Force and had a career in real estate and banking. He previously published Everlasting Glory, a historical work that tells the story of each of the men from Vermont that was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor during the Civil War.

Winter Night

By Martin Rizley

A full moon fills the sky with lustrous light
And gives the vault of heaven in the night
A golden sheen that gilds the cloudy wisps
That drift across the sky like phantom ships.

The moon’s glow falls upon the ice-bound lake,
On frosted reeds and brambles in the brake,
On snow-encrusted limbs of leafless trees
That stand like shining angels in the leas.

A sacred stillness holds all things in place
At this late hour of rare celestial grace,
When heaven’s glory bathes a frozen scene,
Disrobing beauty, gleaming and pristine.

Yet who is witness to this wondrous sight?
Who sees the naked valley glowing bright,
Since now, throughout the incandescent dell,
All eyes are sealed by sleep´s seductive spell?

Only the birds who tremble in their nest,
And tiny foxes waking from their rest,
And baby deer who through the woods now go,
In silence, keeping close to mother doe,

And I! whose wakeful eyes in awe behold
This scene, whose loveliness cannot be told;
For human words imperfectly convey
The magic of a night lit up like day.

Its splendor glistens, as the winter moon
Ignites both ice and snow, like jewels strewn
Across a landscape dazzling to the eye
Whose beauty none who sees it can deny.

Such radiant things are hidden from the sight
Of those who sleep throughout the frigid night;
But chosen souls, awakened by God’s hand,
Behold His hidden works and understand.

God’s world is full of wonders to behold!
If we have eyes to see them when the cold
And dark of winter lull the world to sleep,
And multitudes in drifts lie buried deep.

Remember this, and please do not forget—
God has bright visions for His people yet!
But sleepyheads will never have a peep
Of wonders seen by those who vigil keep.

Martin Rizley grew up in Oklahoma and Texas, and has served in pastoral ministry both in the United States and Europe. He is currently serving as the pastor of a small evangelical church in the city of Málaga on the southern coast of Spain, where he lives with his wife and daughter.

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