Saturday, December 13, 2008

Ice poems

We had an ice storm yesterday. It started duing the night and went on through much of the day. I sat home--my work was cancelled--listening to branches snapping and crashing behind my house. Here in Maine we don't have to fear many natural disasters--unless you consider the interminable winters--but ices storms are the most destructive phenomenon of that kind that we face.

Anyway, what do you do when you're unexpectedly sitting home on a workday? I write poems. Here are a couple of haiku, and then a longer poem, all of which I owe to yesterday's ice storm. First, the haiku:

The road a sheet of ice--
the phone out--the lights flickering--
sirens and hot tea.

***

The neighbor's willow
slowly shatters--bent branches
ripping and snapping.

***

Ice Storm

How do trees survive in these
persistent hard times? Ice-bound,
choked off, encrusted, a bent-double pine
in the neighbor's yard: in three month's time
it will harbor whole towns of chorusing birds.
Today, though, Spring is but a distant hallelujah,
as winter shatters the willow, its woody sinews
cracking like thunder and crashing to hard ground.
Meanwhile, sirens scream toward another wreck
on the frozen streets of our huddled town.
Fierce winter seems to chill the heart,
but patience learned in northern climes
makes hope hardy, like a northern pine.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

very cool :-)

L.L. Barkat said...

Nancy stopped by my blog to tell me about your poems.

I like this line...

"...patience learned in northern climes
makes hope hardy, like a northern pine."

I also like the juxtaposition of sirens and tea in your first one. Much of life feels like that... the tension of threat and comfort in the same space.

Bob Spencer said...

Glad you guys liked it! Especially as you both write some fine poetry yourselves.

Anonymous said...

i'm working on a painting of an ice storm's close up magic on tree branches. was searching for poems on ice storms for mental inspriation. really liked the line: Spring is but a distant hallelujah...thanks.