Snowfall

[hillwalker]

SNOWFALL

The white noise of winter has settled all around us

We trawl the river bank for clues
fog-mist forest glades
pine trees laden with blossom
stooping once too late
one careless moment as my shoulders become tinselled by one branch

Fresh scuffs of greenery
where you scraped and foraged
and here and there a brief chicane
of boulders not quite dormant

We pass a fishing perch bedecked in white
a diving board to arctic dreams of basking whales and ice flotillas
and upstream in a sudden startling gasp of sunlight
watch a single fish leap out to snatch the day
when I thought all the world asleep bar you and me

I tread more cautiously
along the filament of sky
where reeds are flattened
crushed by sleeping clouds

And far beyond the pristine white encroaches on the loch
each single grain of ice embedded in a galaxy of giddy light
yet mottled at the edge in brittle grey
and cracked across in places

The cloven tracks of your insomnia
lead right to the edge
that swatch of night
without a single gleaming star to guide us home
so I keep mirroring your moves
one step closer
one step closer
one more step
and for good luck…..

H

[Hawkman]

This is great hill. So much more to describe than the feeble dusting down here :D there are so many memorable moments but I particulalrly like this one:

"We pass a fishing perch bedecked in white
a diving board to arctic dreams of basking whales and ice flotillas
and upstream in a sudden startling gasp of sunlight
watch a single fish leap out to snatch the day
when I thought all the world asleep bar you and me"

A wonderful read, thanks - H

[Jack of Hearts]

The white noise of winter has settled all around us

We trawl the river bank for clues
fog-mist forest glades
pine trees laden with blossom
stooping once too late
one careless moment as my shoulders become tinselled by one branch

White noise has a connotation of meaninglessness. There is some sort of search the narrator is taking with at least one other person. Pine trees would seem to be desolate in winter yet they are 'laden with blossom', perhaps snow (meaninglessness in the metaphor?). A single mistake is made that affects the narrator.

In terms of style- Present tense. 'Fog mist forest glades' is outstanding lyrical by comparison. The rest of the stanza relies on imagery and metaphor that will be expanded upon (perhaps). Also the repetition of the word 'one' and it's function in the last line of the stanza.


Fresh scuffs of greenery
where you scraped and foraged
and here and there a brief chicane
of boulders not quite dormant

Chicane: noun: obstacle on a path or course.

Snow is perhaps not all consuming, the greenery 'scraped and foraged' (notably past tense) by the narrator's companion. ' A brief chicane of boulders not quite dormant', presumably not covered in snow. Or perhaps simply unresolved obstructions. There's suggestion of moving toward an end point or goal.

A bit of prosody with an off-rhyme in 'foraged' and 'dormant'. A more paced stanza by virtue of line length, rhythm granted by the placement of the breaks. The poem has a plot but none is forwarded in this stanza- a side bit for context.


We pass a fishing perch bedecked in white
a diving board to arctic dreams of basking whales and ice flotillas
and upstream in a sudden startling gasp of sunlight
watch a single fish leap out to snatch the day
when I thought all the world asleep bar you and me

Fishing perch as a metaphor has a function. From this interpretation 'a diving board' is a simple metaphor for the more complex one (the dock) and what is fished for is 'arctic dreams.' Rather than conspicuous 'whales' coming up, it is a 'single fish' that 'snatches the day'- something minimal where grand or conspicuous is expected..'When I thought all the world asleep bar you and me'- this line is in the past tense. The narrator no longer thinks this? Or perhaps realizes the point when he or she begins to think this. There is a reference to insomnia later and it is probably not coincidental. A direct rhyme is presented, presumably for added cohesion in form.


I tread more cautiously
along the filament of sky
where reeds are flattened
crushed by sleeping clouds

Something in the previous passage has affected the narrator and encouraged him or her to 'tread cautiously', perhaps suspecting another tree branch as in the first stanza. 'Sleeping clouds' suggest snow or white noise is no longer falling if the metaphor is extended. In the last line of the stanza the tense is switched again


And far beyond the pristine white encroaches on the loch
each single grain of ice embedded in a galaxy of giddy light
yet mottled at the edge in brittle grey
and cracked across in places

'Each single grain of ice embedded in a galaxy of giddy light' suggests meticulous detail in the pieces of a whole. And yet this construct is treacherously 'mottled' and 'cracked', suggesting it is uncertain whether or not it will sustain. And what's beneath that ice? The nebulous ether where a person searches for 'whales' or 'fish'? Is the 'encroached' ice not unlike careful metaphor?


The cloven tracks of your insomnia
lead right to the edge
that swatch of night
without a single gleaming star to guide us home
so I keep mirroring your moves
one step closer
one step closer
one more step
and for good luck…..

'Cloven tracks' belong to both beasts and devils. Either the companion is one of these or his or her 'insomnia' is being personified as so. A strain is sensed on the companion who seems to be leading, in some way, toward the perilous ice.'Without a gleaming star to guide us home' means desperation or no going back, as does approaching 'the edge'. The narrator realizes the he or she has arrived at the point of no return and must follow the companion, trusting that the companion knows the way. Steps, 'and for good luck...'


Did they make it over?


J

[hillwalker]

@Hawk - thanks for your kind words - I'm glad you found it to your liking, and

@Jack - your meticulous analysis almost puts my poem to shame. The underlying themes of insomnia and a nebulous dreamscape were intentional - I was trying to encapsulate those disturbing dreams where you suddenly take a bottomless step into oblivion that shakes you awake, and match that sensation to a fall through ice.

But the inspiration was a walk taken through the snow, following the tracks of a deer. The creature appeared to have got too close to the edge of the ice but tracks further along the loch shore suggest it escaped intact - as did I.

Thanks again

H

[PrinceMyshkin]

"each single grain of ice embedded in a galaxy of giddy light"

is astounding as is the whole of the last verse of this magnificent poem!

[Haunted]

Hill, the way you crafted the scene is so stunning, anything I say would not do justice to the poem. I was so carried away I totally missed the mark. In my mind I saw two lovers closing up the space between them and the transcending moment when they did. The repetition at the end of the poem is breathtaking.

[hillwalker]

@Prince and @Haunted - thank you both for reading and for your comments.

H

[AuntShecky]

I liked this, but had trouble comprehending it completely until I read some of your responses to the commentary.(I hasten to add that the problem could be the result of my denseness and not any flaws in the piece. (Just like a romantic breakup-- "It's not you--it's me.")

What threw me were two pronouns--"we" and "you." Re:the former, as I had the impression there were two people walking together, and when an apostrophe "you" appears, I took it to mean that the narrator was addressing his walking companion. I guess, after reading your response,
"you" refers to the deer which the narrator is following.

I wish I had seen an earlier allusion to the deer, which I didn't pick up until I read one of your replies. The use of "cloven" immediately then made sense, and it was not an allusion to "The Devil and Daniel Webster," or that old English ballad in which the narrator, a young lady, doesn't notice the cloven foot until it's way too late. When I see deer footprints (hoofprints?) , they always remind me of valentines.

White noise was an apt image, as there is a unique kind silence during a snowfall that is nowhere else replicated. I was familiar with the term "white noise" -- a title of a Don deLillo novel and an unrelated movie, but when I looked up the term online the description was wonky. But
people do actually purchase "white noise machines" to drown out other ambient noises to help them sleep. In your poem the phrase is double-edged-- it underscores the tranquil setting as well as the color of the pristine precipitation.

"Scuffs" had me scratching me head-- scruffs as on shoes or the sound across a rug. It would work for the sound of boots on snow. A second reading shows me that the deer has rubbing the evergreen branches/needles back and forth in the snow.

"Chicane"--interesting choice. It's the verb form of chicanery--"trickery." I can see how the elusive "prey" so to speak, is fooling the narrator. The sound effects of that word are good as well.

At the poem's midpoint, I would tinker with the line break so that you wouldn't have a line with just the single word "me." How about:
"When I thought the world world asleep
bar(ring?) you and me."

My favorite part of the poem was the image of a small branch brushing the speaker's shoulders-- "tinseled." That was inspired!

[hillwalker]

Thanks @Aunty for this considerate reading (as always).

The fact that I was following the prints of a deer whilst composing the piece in my head is merely a side issue - hence the indirect references (as always, I try to avoid being too obvious).

It was meant to be a description of tracking something elusive - as elusive as solitude or sleep - in a natural snowscape I was fortunate to explore alone earlier this week.

H

[blank|verse]

Good stuff, HW.

It reminded me of Robin Robertson's poetry in content; although I think there's a lot you could learn from Robertson's tight, sparse lines. There are some great images here, as always, but I think you're selling yourself short a bit by smothering the poetry in a lot of unnecessary prose. Eg:

and upstream in a sudden startling gasp of sunlight
could easily be:

Upstream, a gasp of sunlight
Paradoxically, using the pre-modifiers 'sudden' and 'startling' make the image the opposite of these qualities for the reader because the sentence is slower to read. Also, instead of 'a single fish', can you just name the fish?

The 'white noise' of winter is unusual and disturbing, as snow is often represented as silence, absence or forgetfulness. (Wallace Stevens's 'Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is' from 'The Snow Man'; 'Winter kept us warm, covering | Earth in forgetful snow' said Eliot; and Robertson's 'The Park Drunk' from 'Swithering' gives us 'the morning's soft amnesia of snow', 'What the snow has furred | to silence, uniformity', and a landscape in which 'frost wants to know what | snow tries to forget'. I can't remember who said 'rain is silence turned up high' but your line has echoes of that as well.)

Unfortunately, I think this presents a problem in the context of the poem because the image isn't carried through, which is a shame. You wouldn't lose anything from the poem if the line was removed. And I can't be bothered with my usual lecture about the varying stanza and even line lengths, apart from to admire line 6's rampant defiance: 'You can't stop me! I'll be as long as I want!!'

The ending is good, although you're really wringing it out in the last few lines. More successfully, with the possibility of falling through the snow (alright, ice – close enough) it brings the reader back to the title, which now has a double-meaning. There is a distinct lack of punctuation again. I know we're in a recession, but there are limits! Here – have some of mine … ,,, ;;; ::: --- ''' """ ??? !!!

Now, can the moderators please ban anyone else from posting a poem with 'snow' in it, until I've had chance to finish mine?! :)

[yuka]

seems so many unfamiliar words for me. :)

you are really an expert at depiction, Mr hill.

like hawkman, i especially like this stanza:

"We pass a fishing perch bedecked in white
a diving board to arctic dreams of basking whales and ice flotillas
and upstream in a sudden startling gasp of sunlight
watch a single fish leap out to snatch the day
when I thought all the world asleep bar you and me"

---very beautiful

in addition, i must admit when i read this "@Jack - your meticulous analysis almost puts my poem to shame" i could't help laughing,( no, just chuckle). i very love this use and decided to steal it for my future using. and

"But the inspiration was a walk taken through the snow, following the tracks of a deer' ---wow, this is really made me full of envy, what a beautiful life, hope some day i will follow the tracks of one unicorn through snow. (lol)

[hillwalker]

@ b|v - thank you for your taking the trouble to make a number of pertinent points - I can see how tightening up some of my crowded lines helps propel the poem forward (albeit in heavy boots rather than skis). As for the 'single fish' - alas it did not remain in close enough proximity for me to get its name.

Punctuation schmunctuation - let the reader find his own way through the poem I say. And I'm assuming you meant I might be better removing the opening line - well, I think it serves a purpose in setting the scene and suggesting something else underlying the tranquility of the landscape.

@yuka - thanks also for reading and for your generous comments. My response to Jack's feedback was entirely sincere but I am pleased you are discovering the richness of the English language in such relaxed company.

And unicorns - alas not this time. But you will be the first to know if I ever find the tracks of one in our woods.

H

[blank|verse]

Punctuation schmunctuation
Well, I think you're missing a trick. Punctuation marks are like rests in music: they help score the words for the voice.

And I wasn't so much suggesting removing the first line, as being disappointed that such an original image wasn't a recurring one through the piece.

As for the fish - if you didn't see it, make it up! It's a poem! Don't tell anyone I told you that, though. :)

[hillwalker]

Well, I think you're missing a trick. Punctuation marks are like rests in music: they help score the words for the voice.

I know I know

H
:-)

[Captain_Kuchiki]

I enjoyed the imagery and metaphors of this poem. I find winter/snowy scenes to be quite beautiful to see or describe, and that's what this poem has!

[yuka]

@yuka - thanks also for reading and for your generous comments. My response to Jack's feedback was entirely sincere but I am pleased you are discovering the richness of the English language in such relaxed company.

And unicorns - alas not this time. But you will be the first to know if I ever find the tracks of one in our woods.

H[/QUOTE]

haha, its said only those who are pure sincere can see the unicorn, so, maybe just me myself have the chance to encounter one:biggrin5:

[jajdude]

Very good one hill, liked it a lot.

[hillwalker]

Thanks @jajude - I appreciate your kind comment.

EDIT - and @Captain - just spotted your response..... ditto.....


H