the odd slant

of winter’s light

cast telling

Rorschach shadows

shorter days spin

in a dysthymic cycle

and reveal

you just can’t win

Shadows dance in winter's night,

hiding secrets in pale moonlight

As Winter's shadows whisper and sigh,

they weave a matrix of snowflakes falling from the sky

And the shadows of winter, haunting and still,

dance on snowy hills while sending a chill

Down my spine as I watch from my window covered in ice,

Frost-kissed shadows, paint a canvas of darkness so precise

The shadows of winter nights, like ink spilled from the sky,

hide secrets in their depths, and I wait to be mystified.

Spring leaves, lilac

a living shadow, green

in the brittle of the trees

umbra limbs frost bitten

across the pallid snow fields,

climbing back to branch peak

at the noon of winter season,

warming in the evening bloom,

a living shadow, the moss green,

Spring leaf, and lilac blossoming

in the way Sun Light is traveling...

hungry, barefoot and bindlestiffed

11.10.2023

Shadows thar Live in Winter challenge @dctezcan

Have you seen the dandelions blooming in the fall?

Probably not, because by fall the frost has killed them all.

Have you ever seen a songbird singing in the snow?

Probably not because southern warmth calls them and they go.

Have you ever trod a chilly July morn?

You've never found the sun exhausted from keeping your skin warm. What about the springtime? When everything is wet.

Can you find a dry spot in the clover as you set?

The seasons bring their own vicissitude and strife.

But the end to their means is to make way for new life.

You have a place in every season, dont hunt for what is gone. Preserve yourself “holding fast unto the throng.”

Summer waits at springtime end and fall follows the same. When wintertime sends her worst spring will come again

they say no two snowflakes are alike, but how do you workshop that in writing class? everyone comes with the same story, just with a different structure, and that's when it hits me - I'm as unique as a light fixture, missing the point entirely.

I took a creative writing course once, a long time ago, when I wasn't yet bitter. I sat next to a girl who opened like a flower when it was her turn to give her input. she read a poem of hers out loud, about her boyfriend's mom. but her voice wasn't hers. it was a poet's - I ask you: do snowflakes change shape when they know they're beautiful?

ten years later, it isn't her poem that sticks with me from that class. it was her voice, the way she spoke. how each word became an icicle, right in the eyelid.

I think of "every snowflake is unique" as a parody. but maybe it's the structure, the shadow they cast on each of us, individually.

I wonder if she knows she was an icon. the applause after her reading was electric. all these years later, she is a shadow that exists in winter - unique and structurally sound, even after it hits the ground.

Three winters ago he was shy,

His heart shyly beating, so close to mine.

Two winters ago, we started dating,

My heart soaring, our love delighting.

But last winter he turned into a monster,

His heart hardened, his love fizzling out.

He became something he hated the most,

His father, his spirit now so dark and cold.

Before he was sweet like a doe,

His love swamping me, bringing me joy.

Now he is a wolf, going to eat me,

My heart breaking, my spirit so low.

Shadows

Of leaves and flowers -

Can you hear them?

They bring

Echoes,

Melodies

That resonate

In cold

Isolated

Winter months.

*

Shadows

And images

Traipse through

The woods

To reveal

Memories of

Days spent

In the sun

Now just a reflection

In the ice.

*

Shadows

In the haunted,

Crystallized

Walls of home,

Warmed by

Memories of you.

Do you feel them

Occupy

The vacancy

In your heart?

*

Shadows

Of new birth

Seen in the

Sun-kissed snow.

You, along with

The ice,

Melt

To reveal

A new umbra -

Is it really you?

*

Echoes

Of shadows

In winter

Evolve, reflect

A penumbra,

An eclipse

To welcome

Newly born,

Diversity and

Life.

Now to Lexy's credit, Harley Scott had been at one point a nasty, demanding little monster that just loved "Daddy's plastic," the summertime regimen didn't exactly advertise the hard treks through the frigid cold or subtracting the "rich" out of rich kid.

*************************

Harley'd heard that moldy old joke one too many times.

The Cinder-Saster of the prestigious, reputable Winmeinster Day Prep.

It had not always been that way.

Harley-Ella's abuse hadn't come from a stepmother. Strict, curt, and just the slightest bit prissy Lexy Forcett turned out to be quite the reliable Mother. Sharp teeth too, when not for herself, but for her young step-daughter had she stood tall before a gallery theater of jackals.

Juvenile corrections. Miliary themed.

In the winter the wind was too strong, much too loud.

Harley loathed the excesses of socialite life. Had gone dizzy to the arcade games that fateful party he'd spirited her away.

As Jared had done now, by the agreement of both their families, had they been spirited away to the darling snow white winter of a ensconced woodside chalet.

"Harley, you're shivering," he spoke softly, taking special care of how she looked, to be whimpering in her thick blanket.

"I'zz fine. I'm fine. I'm grateful."

"Look, I got hot chocolate, come on we'll turn on the heater and then..." Jared gently touched her exposed hand, icy to the touch and nails edged blue. "We can talk. Please."

She shook her head. "It's Thursday."

"It's winter break. In the Rockies," he opposed. "Be nice to yourself, indulge a bit." Jared delayed, before saying it. "You're already beautiful."

"I-- I look nice, sure," she agreed.

"There, see."

"But it's Thursday, sweets for weekends not before."

Harley began to hum, no not hum...

She was harmonizing the words. A mantra.

"Sweets and phones and clothes and silk, spoil ilk."

"Sweets and phones and clothes and silk. Soft excuses, expensive filth."

"Sweets and phones and clothes and silk. Such spoiled-- spoiled rot," Harley couldn't finish, just let out a gasp and grit her teeth.

Eyes ferocious and defiant as he'd grown used to in school.

Yet the jut of her lip and strength of her scowl was a small ember. Nothing to dissuade even the vapid chic girls, much less-- whatever awful creature drilled propaganda through her skull.

She did make quite the grade in gym class.

For such a pampered, once sheltered daughter of a car mogul a la modern convenience.

"Harley, you know, a soft bed is just a nice thing to feel and... would you tell Celia or even Fred they'd be wrong to have something sweet every now and again?"

"Hardly," she harrumphed, "it's not my place at all."

"Then I'd hazard a guess it isn't some gross, evil geezer's place to tell you the same."

"I'm fine," Harley insisted.

But she took the mug.

"It's plenty warm."

"Hm okay, do you want your pink hat or the Harpy bronze 2009?"

"The 2009."

"As you say, my princess."

Pure derangement lurks in the gaze, void of mortal attachment or concern. That's what identifies us...

I still remember my first. Guarded eyes, dark hair, nice teeth.. Perfect hands stuffed deeply into his pockets against the freezing night. I had to HAVE him. I needed his body to be mine and mine alone, so I stalked him through the howling winds and heavy snowfall. He entered an alley illuminated by a singular streetlight, florescent and flickering. The walls on both sides blocked some of the loud gusts making it possible for him to finally hear my approach. He swiftly glanced back at me and from his expression, it was clear that he understood my intentions. Well.. He understood ONE intention, definitely. He broke into a full sprint away from me. I slowed to a leisurely pace, marvelling at how pristine the snow undisturbed by his panicked footprints was, so confident in my ability to make him mine. I rounded the final curve, locking eyes with him- his, frenzied and pleading. Mine, hollow as two bird bones. He didn't feel the same. He didn't want me, but I was his gift. I was pure carnality on two feet with a bow made of virulence knotted around my neck and HE- with the ivory ground beneath our feet now steaming from his leaking red -he was my awakening. Those guarded eyes suspend in formaldehyde and that dark hair retains his scent in a vacuum sealed bag.Those nice teeth clatter within a jar like a makeshift infant's rattle. And those perfect hands... Those perfect, perfect hands... are MINE to hold forever. I'll always remember my first.