Lillehammer in winter, ice diamonds in the snow
ice feathers on branches show the temperature
is very low
Deep cold in England, garden cobwebs become adorned
with days of hoar frost growth and the spiders
are folorn
The slow magic of ice delights me
Copyright © 2022 Kim Whysall-Hammond
This poem is a quadrille, it has exactly 44 words. It is posted in response to the prompt over at Dverse tonight. Mish has asked us for quadrilles using the word ice, or words formed from it.
The sky is empty
Pale winter blue
A single bar of cloud
Hovers over the western horizon
And as I drive
The sun dips behind it
The edges of the cloud glow silver
The strong beauty almost takes me off the road
Copyright © 2015 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Reposted from a while back, but this happened to me again the other day!
Tall, lean, feline, black eyed Winter is aprowl
high-shouldered, haughty, she
swirls through branches that strain to catch her
bleaches an expansive sky
watches for lonely bones
This night a god will sing in the storm
lay her glitter cloak over all
reveal a power and deadly glory
to make you question your beliefs
as she slithers under doors to embrace you
gnaws your bones with cold
takes you
Copyright © 2022 Kim Whysall-Hammond
‘Winter God’ was first published in March 2022 by Milk and Cake Press in the Dead of Winter 2 anthology
Posted for Earthweals weekly challenge. OK , so a bit of a cheat, but we are predicted temperatures of -10C (14F) here in England – I fear that the Winter god is taking up residence.
Glad voices ring out in the chill air from the sledding slope
As we circle unsteadily on a frozen lake, finding our feet
Long new six foot wooden feet
Then we begin to glide, relaxing into the flow
Betrayed by speed on the first slope
The ground crashes up to us
We kiss hard snow several times as we ski through the forest
Mainly laughing at our woes
Eschewing the tracks, our (mostly) parallel woods slice into fresh powdered snow
Until the next topple
Scattered folds of night
litter bright mown grasses
spring up into the air
startled, flapping
at our arrival
We watch them wheel and
turn above us
spot a Red Kite floating high
turn again, caw to each other
settle under advantageous trees
Kite eats carrion not crow
Copyright © 2022 Kim Whysall-Hammond
For this week’s earthweal challenge, we are asked to “write of WILD MIND. How does green fire take root in the thought of our poems?”
I am offering up a little vignette of parkife here in my small town. After a morning of Internet research for a local project, I took a walk, and was lifted by my local birds.
As winter, and so much else
winds to an ending
we begin the work
to forge paths back into the world
to be able to walk out without worry
to travel and explore new places
new thoughts, new ways of living
we must be gentle and patient
give grace to the vulnerable of body and feeling
as we each find our own pace in the years ahead
Copyright © 2022 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Inspired by, and in some places using the words of, Angela T Carr.
a dreaming skin – Writing, Poetry & Creativity | Angela T Carr, Dublin, Ireland (wordpress.com)
Trees stark against the sky
show signs of hard pruning
or scars of storm damage
Sunlight shafts through leafless woods
reveals which wild seeded
and which are straight lined planting
The artificial brightnesses of our Decembers
do not touch this hard solitude
as we all wait for the future
Copyright © 2021 Kim Whysall-Hammond
This is a reworking of a poem I wrote (and blogged) in 2017. I was never sure of the ending, and I like this version better.
I was inspired to go back to this poem by the weekly prompt at Earthweal, which is all about Nadirs and Zeniths.
I have two poems (Lilbourne and Summer Queen) in this great Anthology from Milk and Cake Press. It examines the dark, the supernatural, and the uncanny of a long, cold winter. As we move from the depths of winter toward spring, and from pandemic isolation to a more normal life, these poems may be the perfect companion. Please buy a copy now!
Lilbourne is a poem about ghosts who linger in and near Milton Lilbourne in Wiltshire, while
Summer Queen retells Rumpelstiltskin in a prehistoric setting.
There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons —
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes —
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us —
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are —
None may teach it — Any —
‘Tis the Seal Despair —
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air —
When it comes, the Landscape listens —
Shadows — hold their breath —
When it goes, ’tis like the Distance
On the look of Death —
Mist loiters on the edge of vision
our overgrown hazel reaches up
pleading, as we snip and saw
Copyright © 2021 Kim Whysall-Hammond
The Cheesesellers Wife 