Paint & Poetry: Winter 2024-25

Snowdrift Time

Then,
a quarter century ago,
a long winter of millennial skiing,
day in, day out. Nights stilled by talk.
Dark-night talk, talks of from whence did this all fall? Why?
All the thoughts, the actions, the stillness, all a result of skiing.

We felt no results, more snowmelt followed, glacial snowmelt.
Our world in trouble,
the last decade of
the last millennium gone now, lost.
2025 soon enough.

Kids, our future,
all the kids now, grand kids, great kids.
Children once part of the problem, now the solution,
too many people anymore. Reproducing
at a rate less than accommodatable, less than accountable.
We dream better ways,
we see our mistakes, we ski.
We have kids. They have kids.

Snow, more snow,
A winter of snow keeping some away,
but now there’s not enough snow, not enough. We must
share deep powder, our cold smoke, our joy. Newcomers
arrive and crowd us, and we skin further
skinning into dark woods to ski virgin snow.

Snow piling, snow melting,
deep soaking snow, snow soaking up spring; white, to turquoise, to lime.
Rivers rise. We float, float ’em and fish ’em murky or not.
Woman come, lascivious, wanton, their limerence gone.
Wives gone, wives no more
to us, only mothers to our children, our precious children
Grown to have more children. We continue to ski pow and float water
absorbing time into our bones.

Ski, float—we know what we want.
—we didn’t want what we saw coming.
Nevermind, we wait for
Snow.
We bring our grandkids to ski new snow.