During our recent double-snow-ice weekend extravaganza, my husband was away, and I spent many hours out in the aftereffects, shoveling and walking the dog.  It was a wonderful opportunity for embracing cold and silence, and for observing the snow-covered wonderland.

1. Silent Night

It snowed all night, and into the next day,
Snow falling, silence falling, deep and deeper.
Alone for some days, myself and the dog,
Ventured out into the muffled dark.

The quiet, overwhelming, enfolded us.
The world was ours, this whiteness ours alone.
My pup, a black blur, hurdling soft heaps,
Twirling and arcing, ecstatic in the drifts.

It stills the mind, this blanketed world,
Cars disappeared under new-mounded lids ,
Paths gone, my track made new, and difficult,
But in a simple way, a way that pleases.

Frost and Stevens with their minds of winter,
Heard darkness, deepness, in their empty woods,
Wind in bare trees, or death, or nothing.

I hear my own footsteps, breaking  trail,
The muted celebrations of a dog in fresh snow,
Our footprints weaving together and apart,
My thoughts, loud in my head and heart,
All the world a silent new beginning.

2. Snow Sparkle

The following brilliant day, this scene ablaze,
We break our trail again, now barely there,
Obscured—no soul has braved this glittering path.

My dark companion, bolder in the light,
Is everywhere, inhaling, marking  scent
For fellow travelers who’ll widen our way.

The dazzle blinds me, penetrates my core
With light and lightness, burns my senses clean,
Displaces thought with glistening crystal glare.

I stoop to parse the mystery, this diamond field,
The luminous, shifting sparkle spread out wide,
A million mirrors answering the sky.

Mary Peckham for The Poplar Grove Muse