My youngest was in his 1st year of preschool when we cleared the land, and now he’s in his last year of high school, and finally I’ve stopped demanding/dreaming/coveting my neighbor’s eastern exposure; and instead come to delight in the way my wintry days begin as a jewel, sparkling through his trees, into my welcoming hands.
(And maybe it takes 9 years of prayer to surrender to the gifts in our own hands.)
It is impossible, is it not, to step out into our landscape,
without receiving or sensing or feeling, or in my case, spontaneously writing…
poetry.
How this soft, silent, sparkling world of fresh snow
with stenciled trails made by tiny paws,
and carved paths, made by larger ones–mine–
In a southernly snow-shoed spiral on the front lawn
just beyond the waves of White tossed
by Jimmy Cloud’s plow late last night
Is now being sprinkled by fairy dust falling
from the blue sky, or is it the Evergreen
boughs shaking
Upon me
as I write
this verse
in my mind.
Kelly Salasin, October 09
This Vermont Life 