Gospel
Five below zero.
The stream bank is garlanded
with flowers of frost.
The dogmatic drone
of a single-prop plane,
its cross-shaped silhouette.
The sky is blue as a bruise.
My lungs ache
just from trying to breathe.
Poems on the topic: frost
Poems on the topic “frost” on Poets.by.
For Rachel
anger what good
the flower is angrier than i am
so is the blood
that rights & jerks in the ground
when i slice it with my rake
my daughter following
pulling crocus flowers
off the flagstone where the sudden freeze
left them
frost
frost, i breathe in,
the freezing air filling my lungs,
bleeding into my veins, chilling
to the bone, as it spreads throughout
me; a network of ice just as a cobweb,
and i am the pitiful prey trapped by
nature's embrace. teeth chattering,
reddened skin pricks at sensitive nerves
threatening to fall apart any moment,
a frostbitten heart ceases to beat no more.
for acceptance is one that cannot be forced,
for it is nature's law that love has its destiny,
for it is our right
to refuse another.
Autumn
gold-coral leaves
too rich and transient
to hold this autumn day
loud shots of hunters
I shrink for graceful deer
radios shoot the sky
cold - death of sweaty yellow heat
reaches to snow
sun pales vanishes
sap tree life still
kicking against
frost
Autumn Apple
Tinge of frost
kisses the grass,
apples catch the dew
on burning cheek.
Hot mouth shivers,
anticipation - sharp
teeth snag the skin
taste the bitter essence.
Spring Springs
Spring springs upon her unawares;
Perhaps she thought snow would drift
Right up to her window, as it should
In February, as in her memory
No such month escaped some white.
Going forth in a sleeveless shift
She pockets up seeds for flats,
Pulls out dank bins of soil,
Reaches for small pots, sets hope
In light. Such April ploys are
Not to be counted on, she knows --
Guessing random frosts
Still may spring upon her unawares.
February
The frost under our feet
doesn’t cough that loudly,
yet it sounds more like
an old man’s mumbling.
The wind is not breathing
fast and chilly like last month.
Undressed trees
do not look that pretty
yet they seem shy, hiding within
thousands of pregnant buds.
It’s February,
the daylight
has emerged victorious
from its great battle
against dark.
Sierra City—September
Two hours before dawn your eyes open
and you tiptoe across cold linoleum
to check the thermometer outside: the thin,
red capillary’s clipped down to thirty-one.
After breakfast you glance at your father’s garden:
it’s going underground: carrots and a few potatoes
duck the frost. After last night’s freezing, leaves
of tomato vines curl and harden like arthritic hands.
From the kitchen in late afternoon, you watch
your father in his dying garden, oak boughs already
yellowing. They toss all around him in northerly gusts.
He patiently surveys the damage.
When you see his cotton shirt pulled taut across his back
as he stoops to pull a carrot, you try to steel yourself
against a quickened fear—perhaps
Sandy Star: Sculptured Worship
The zones of warmth around his heart,
No alien airs had crossed;
But he awoke one morn to feel
The magic numbness of autumnal frost.
His thoughts were a loose skein of threads,
And tangled emotions, vague and dim;
And sacrificing what he loved
He lost the dearest part of him.
In sculptured worship now he lives,
His one desire a prisoned ache;
If he can never melt again
His very heart will break.
A Winter Night
My window-pane is starred with frost,
The world is bitter cold to-night,
The moon is cruel, and the wind
Is like a two-edged sword to smite.
God pity all the homeless ones,
The beggars pacing to and fro,
God pity all the poor to-night
Who walk the lamp-lit streets of snow.
My room is like a bit of June,
Warm and close-curtained fold on fold,
But somewhere, like a homeless child,
My heart is crying in the cold.
Winter
I shall have winter now and lessening days,
Lit by a smoky sun with slanting rays,
And after falling leaves, the first determined frost.
The colors of the world will all be lost.
So be it; the faint buzzing of the snow
Will fill the empty boughs,
And after sleet storms I shall wake to see
A glittering glassy plume of every tree.
Nothing shall tempt me from my fire-lit house,
And I shall find at night a friendly ember
And make my life of what I can remember.
A December Day
Dawn turned on her purple pillow
And late, late came the winter day,
Snow was curved to the boughs of the willow,
The sunless world was white and grey.
At noon we heard a blue-jay scolding,
At five the last thin light was lost
From snow-banked windows faintly holding
The feathery filigree of frost.
Describe a feeling — we’ll find a poem
Or try: