In winter, I have beheld how silently in the moonlight the whole earth offers Thee prayer, clad in its white mantle of snow, sparkling like diamonds.

From the Akathist Hymn of Thanksgiving.

Your poem is like a gourmet meal in my mouth. I just keep on saying the lines because they feel and sound so beautiful in my mouth. I haven't encountered a poem that speaks so well in years.

Thank you very much for those kind words.

And thanks as well for the Akathist link.

"Snow is all right while it is snowing; it is like inebriation because it is very pleasing when it is coming, but very unpleasing when it is going."

Ogden Nash

Mr. V, You have outdone yourself. You have certainly outdone he who would be our global shepherd and bard unto death and destruction, killing him softly with snowflakes.

Lovely on many levels.

Deep Freeze

A memory of long ago of flat Fens and deep snow;
The weeping willow bent low
And Robin Redbreast, desperate,
Accepting remnants from my Jubilee plate.

So still, so clear, so crisp, so clean;
A pure idyllic winter scene.
With almost sixty years between
That day and now, that memory returns intact;
Untouched, as this days's frozen tract.

And on this crystal winter day
Along the Sussex South Downs Way;
The Fens and childhood far away,
All that is and was, between that time and now:
Encapsulated and unchanged beneath the pristine snow.
FP
(1990).

Thank you Frank,very evocative.

Miles better than Al Gore.... Miles.... But I damn with feint praise.

It's very good. It captures some of my thoughts and feelings of snow.

That is an extraordinary poem. The second stanza is sheer brilliance. I have to memorize it. I just do.

I was inspired to write my very own (cross posted from Neoneocon):

Tree marrow, tree marrow and tree marrow
Creeps in this warming place from farce to arse to the last hockey stick of Recorded temp.

And all our carbon footprints have lighted capitalists the way to cap ‘n’ trade.

Out! Out! Fossil fuels!
Life is but a warming hazard, a poor redneck who buys and wastes his carbon credits at Walmart.

‘Tis a tale told by the Algore.
Full of fraud and worry
Benefitting no one.

Snow on snow on snow? Read this earlier today - stopped me dead in my tracks on a fully engaged day, and took me to still places in my heart and mind. A lovely respite, thank you. Damn, you're good.

Well, I'll be. I resisted the urge to scroll down and see who wrote this lovely poem and was rewarded by seeing it was all you. Did the photo inspire the poem? If not, it was an inspired choice of illustration.

No I took the photo last year in Portland Maine. It was something I found today looking about for an illustration. I manipulated it a bit to be more in line with the tone of the poem.

Something about a poem when the last line manages that final tweak to the heart . . .

My. My.

Um - what is the figure supposed to be? Man After She Finally Says 'No, I Don't Like You In That Way'?

Beautiful, Gerard.

Have you ever considered recording some of your poems? I'd be curious to compare what I hear and what you intended. On this one, I'm trying to figure how long to pause, if at all, after the period on the first line of each stanza.

@Cris

Speaking strictly as a reader, I get the most satisfaction giving it a strictly Shakespearian pause; a tiny one that doesn't mess with the meter. This is a poem to be set to music. A big, dramatic pause kind of does for the poem what bad singers invariably do to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."

Sorry - just read what I wrote, and I sound like I've got a Pontificate Rod shoved right up my nether region. Apologies.

@Gerard

Bravo. Love this one.

Haunting, thought provoking and written beautifully. Thank you! You are a man of many talents.

I love this poem the most.

I say It's beginnin' to look a lot like Fimbulwinter.

Mr. V, that verse is rare, exceptional. It certainly paused my little world. My first thought was which poet of rank wrote this? Turns out it was you. All the better.

This being my first visit I tremble to think what you make of my man Ron Paul. Here goes...