Winter is Not for Skiing (Not for Me Anyway), Dennis Wayne Bressack [book club suggestions TXT] 📗

Table of Contents

1) From Winter is Born Spring is Born Summer
2) Missouri Ice
3) Snow Fort
4) White Hurricane
5) Ski Resort
6) Sled Hill
7) Back at the Red Barn-February 23, 2000
8) The Bear and the Butterfly
9) I Came Upon a Snow-Filled Field
10) Snowstorm
11) Open the Door
12) Momentary Lapse of Reason
13) God Has Forgotten
14) Cusp of Spring
15) Temple of Love
16) November in the Garden
17) Dark December
18) Swollen Brook
19) Clicking of Steel Boots




1) From Winter is Born Spring is Born Summer

We like snows
where the winds don’t blow.
It’s a glorious day.

Trees without leaves,
taste white delicacies.
It’s a glorious day.

Friend ladybug
in spotted costume dressing gown
is calling my name.

I’m home again.
Snowflakes on my pillow,
I’m home again.

We love sunny days
when we’re awed and amazed
at the miracle of sunlight.

Trees with leaves,
green baked mysteries,
what a glorious day.


Playmates of enchanted meadows
hear me whisper your names.
Come join in this joyous occasion.

Miracles happen at home
time and time again.
The river is home again.

Arlington, Virginia-Winter 1972 to Spring 1972

2) Missouri Ice

The Missouri River ice is thawing
and now the rippling river
can begin to flow.

Winter’s blanket of snow is melting.
Beneath, the plants and seedlings
can begin to grow.

Today, though the skies are cloud cast gray,
I pray tomorrow’s sun
will shine your way.

Newtown, North Dakota-April, 1974

3) Snow Fort

I want to write about survival,
the light at the end of the tunnel.

The rite of spring when puppies,
little boys and fathers play in muddy fields.

When the thump of the ball pops into well oiled mitts
and the crack of the bat crackles the still air.

When snow fort tunnels collapse in March rains,
silly string and seagulls litter the infield grass.

I look to left field,
hoping for a fleeting glance of my son
diving for the sinking line drive.

When I sit down to write,
tragedy spits in my eye.

Grief pours through every pore in my skin.
Three years of tears tumble down my face.
My forehead mirrors scar tissue in my heart.

Remorse may not be a poem that sells,
non-possesive of the whistles and bells.

My poetry is soaked in pools of sorrow,
drenched, stenched in the dance of death.

Middletown, New York-March 29, 1992

4) White Hurricane

The white hurricane blankets bulldogs
rumbles over rooftops,
rattles through windows,
smashes bulkheads into driftwood,
sucks beaches into oceans.

We create angels in five-foot snowdrifts.
I am sentimental about past blizzards,
snow fort construction,
intricate tunnel fabrication,
swerving to avert rocks and trees with my sled.

Immersed in the aroma of hot apple cider and cinnamon,
warm within my home,
family gathered around the Franklin,
I hugged my three children to exhausted sleep,
not knowing that it was the last time.

Middletown, New York-March 13, 1993 (Blizzard of ’93)

5) Ski Resort

Hunter Mountain trails
stretch finger-like white cotton blankets
across its’ snow machined face.
The mountaintop projects splinters of
pine trees melting into a theatre of pale blue.
Floating white puffs of smoke are propelled like
a jack-in-the-box behind that magnificient stage.

Local teen girls bus the tables,
looking for tips and
searching for husbands
while servicing the loud New Jersey crowd,
choking down burgers and
gulping hot cocoa or beer
between lifts to the peak.

The dining room is damp with estrogen.
The bar is thick with testosterone.
The chapel is crowded with singles
praying to get lucky
without contracting a designer virus
or being date raped.
None of this matters to the mountain.

Hunter Mountain, New York-December 1997

6) Sled Hill

Upon winter’s lazy frozen fields of terraced tundra,
sun beams spread across an embroidered, bleached terrain
descended down falling hills of corn and hay stubble,

overlaid by two feet of crisp snow-swept chills.
Shimmering with the delight of anticipatory glacial thrills,
suspending over shoots, jumps and rocks,

we flew on Flexible Flyer sleds,
screamed through five hundred-foot silk quilts,
slipped with precision incision around trees and poles,

screeched, like chalk choking on a blackboard,
past the swamp pump house,
vaulted the broken barbed wire fence and

rested, arms hugging the wood and metal,
broad breaths melting in the silence of the ice,
in a daze in the haze of paradise.

Woodstock, New York-January, 2000

7) Back At The Red Barn February 23, 2000

Route 52 to Bullville snakes past Cragsmore’s peak
sneaks up the mountain’s bare bulging chest.
Winter’s bald crest with hair plug pine trees are
cognizant of twisting stream slicing through canyon below.

Snow sweats vanilla ice cream sculptures,
billowing down the perspiring borders of the boulders,
erecting stalagmite stalactite streamers
composed of unconscious crystals between dimensions.

The red paint of debilitated barns peeled from planks,
flaked in layers like skin off a leper.
Twisted, buckled boards were splintered, fractured bone,
as if tornadoes tore down walls, Godzilla stomped on roof.

Metal airplane hanger pole barns have replaced red barns.
None of the dozen Bullville dairy farms has endured,
substituted by thoroughbred horse farms, million dollar fences, pedigree communities pirouetting on very fertile land.

In these times of hay and honey for sale signs,
clairvoyant cows slosh,
hooves stuck in slop manure mud slush,
jaws rotating on feed, pursed nostrils comprehend karma,
make love to me with perceptive and contemplating eyes.

Woodstock, New York-Feb 23, 2000

8) The Bear and the Butterfly

Smoke hugs the San Francisco Peaks.
Clouds stick to the mountaintop like Velcro,
cling to its face like a marionette.
Lightning lives in snow-covered rocks.

It’s still illegal to build towers on the summit.
Ski resorts can’t use artificial snow.
Plowed Flagstaff streets refurbish trails,
domain of Kachinas, holy to Hopi.

Spirit essences visit the reservation
celebrate from Solstice through Summer.
They bring the blessing of enough water
to grow blue corn on the desert floor.

Rainbows connect sky to earth.
Full moons over Walpi
take me one step over the edge
into the fifth world.

I fall into the prism of the bear and butterfly,
drink from tales of spider woman,
dream of praying in the Kiva,
and sleeping in a cave.

Flagstaff, Arizona-March 8, 200

1


9) I Came Upon a Snow-Filled Field

"There is no path within this forest that human feet have not soiled."

At the end of a road,
I came upon a snow-filled field
adjacent to a frozen forest.
The snow was knee-deep, pearl-white and squeaky-clean.

Not a trace of soot, salt or sand,
not even a deer hoof print
or a rabbit foot track,
pierced the earth’s white envelope.

At the edge of the forest,
I came upon a newly fallen tree
stretched across the icy stream.
I crossed onto a path that led me to a clearing.

There stood a buck,
gaping wound oozing life,
dripping blood into the white snow,
brown hide stained bright red.

Turning his head toward me,
weary eyes staring into mine,
he stumbled, tumbled and fell.
I edged close to his side.


The deer seemed to talk to me with his eyes.
“I cannot understand why,” he said,
I have a wife and children.”
Then, he breathed out the last vapor of his breath.

Woodstock, New York-December 29, 2002

10) Snowstorm

I am up at 3am to pee.
Another snowstorm rages.
I know, because from my window,
looking north through the darkness toward the mountain,
tumbling white walls float, swirl, dance past the streetlight.
Brown grass boot tracks left over from the last storm
are filling with solid water crystals.

There is something special about a snowstorm
that’s guaranteed to cancel school and work.
One in which you can stay home with family without guilt,
haul chopped wood onto the screened-in porch,
build a fire in the fireplace to thaw the morning chill,
read books or play board games, watch TV, listen to music,
while the smell of hot apple cider and cinnamon
floods the house with future memories.

Two days later,
my children are playing on sled hill,
while I sit and watch them from my warm van.
Though the sled slide down without crashing on hillside
is always full of danger,
climbing the hill without slipping to the bottom
is always more difficult.


Gray clouds, bouncing behind Overlook,
marching across the naked sky,
signal another impending snowstorm.
It is nearly zero degrees on this wind-blown, bone-chilling, teeth-chattering, skin-shivering cold slab of ice.

It's the kind of day you can’t warm your gloved hands,
reminiscent of London’s tales, packs of wild wolves howling,
humans, dogs and sleds slicing through the frigid tundra
icy streams skipping and splicing through frozen woods

It is the kind of day that your breath vapor
forms a liquid mask on your face,
and the mucous pouring from your nose
bridges to the border of your upper lip.

Woodstock, New York-January 3 and January 11, 2003


11) Open the Door

I am sitting on the edge of this precipice floor,
looking back at my past with open fists is quite a chore.
I let it go, it flies away, into the darkest mist of yore.
“There’s a child who needs you now,” God does implore.

I am planning my life to follow my path and explore.
God laughs at me as if I know nothing at all.
I think that love already fills my every body pore.
What do I do if a child comes knocking on my door?

The snow falls down in this and that crazy way.
Then the sun shines again and melts it all away.
There is one thing I know, that is for sure.
If a child comes knocking, I would open the door.

“I am too old and have lost two children,” to God I roar.
“I believe that my heart so sore, I just can’t take anymore.”
“Your heart will grow bigger, there is more for you in store.
When a child comes knocking, just open your door.”

I say, “okay, I will listen, to even the score.
I’ll take a chance with your word, open my heart to core.
If it’s a girl or a boy doesn’t matter to me at all.
When that child comes knocking, I will open the door.”

Flagstaff, Arizona-February 26, 2003