the snow keeps me sharp...

i will attempt to overwhelm you (or maybe just regular-whelm you) today with two, yes two posts, after not having written in as many months.

i must tell you of something new for me, that rouses a child like excitement that is nothing less than refreshing. it snowed. a pretty good one for old nash. first, i've never lived in the snow. second, supposedly, it never sticks. well, a couple inches fell on thurs night and it's still here this morning, glistening and crackling under foot, when one ventures out into it, leaving the warmth of layers, couches, and pressed hot black medicine (coffee).

my love and i took a walk in the falling down the other night as it dusted all around us. both God and man made things were made as one under that soft white, and how unlike anything else and quite amazing it is to see the trees and grass and ground with their white shadows, their snowy outlines. it places a romanticism in the thin chilled air as everything made beautiful.

i think perhaps the contrast between inside and outside becomes more drastic. i peak out the window and see a world beyond that to step into takes thought and preparation. i am protected from it all and this is my home. perhaps the cozy connotations of home become more readily felt when the frozen out-of-doors lays kept at bay.

when prepared, both in mind and in dress, the snow and cold is a wonderful thing!

over the thanxgiving time, i awoke one morning and like a strong wind i was compelled to write. i'd like to share that with you now. and secondly, i'm reminded of an older poem that i wrote that today's snowy day just demands that i include.

i endeavor to write to you more while my mind, far from the frozen world, is warm and alive with words and dreams.

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'daybreaking'

the daybreak sun
pushes down
tirelessly
through fog and
the fragile early hour frost,
breaking apart shadows
and the sediment
of yesterday's worries.

the night may capture
all of the previous day
holding our thoughts
like the stiff green/white grass,
but the still and cold
that holds it all in silence
effortlessly bleeds into
that morning peace--
quiet reverie of newness.

all will thaw
and is made whole and new
at the first glows
stretching far from the horizon.

when these panes of glass
hold not back that daybreak sun
from my face,
my eyes behold a clarity
so sharp
and my mind rests in that
healing morning silence.


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'sd snow'

the snow fell
or so the pictures told.
it fell for you
deep into my spring months.
the weather’s promise
of the cold
became old tradition
for you and your Midwest.

hugging branches
and porch banisters,
sleeping in stream beds,
the white erases the past
in icy breaths.

though I sit hearthed and homed
a thousand miles away
from your familiar
snow clouded skies,
the draft from under the door
brings crystalline water memories
and a chill to my neck.

as I put the water
on to boil,
I peak out the window shade
to my own cool evening sky,
snowed pictures in hand.

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