A sleeping forest, the country’s oldest friend

lies on sagging landscape; craggy, not dangerous.

Snowflakes cover fluffy ferns, skinny aspens, crooked junipers

in an echoless drape, frost ghosts a leaf. A mass of snow-tangled

branches paralyse footpaths; it’s like looking into a bean bag.

Somewhere in the distance

a bird calls to another; a Christmas choir heard through frosted windows.

The otherwise vibrant woodland soundtrack

now hushed with the delicacy of a library.

A child wonders through, clutching branches as she passes,

shaking snow dust from its resting place. Her bluish bobble

hat and knitted scarf hold the cold. Mittens on cuff strings jangle

like dumb bells, soaking wet rubber boots kick and crush their way onwards

off the well-tracked paths, amongst unspoiled, diamond painted

forest floors, sparkling in a million tiny camera flashes. She pants

and chugs with reddened cheeks and nose, misty breaths

plume and disappear in a wisp, in winter’s airy crisp.

Stumbling still she finds it;

tightly sealed under glazened lid, shocked reeds poke through

rigid shell, shards of ice sprinkled as if too much salt,

grey with leprosy the lake lies flat on its back; gaping in the snow

like a dead wound. She perches on a bench, shivering. She remembers the day

she finally knew him, happy. She’d watched him leap from

the tire swing and splash, thought he was pretending so she

smiled as he thrashed, kicked, gasped, the bubbling surface water

made her giggle

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Author guidance for This poem

So, this is an exercise for my course where I have to evoke emotion in a given place and use of character.

I'd really like to know if it works! Does it evoke any emotions?

Please tell me =)

Thanks.

P.S. It's a work-in-progress right now so I'll update it if it changes. Also, the title is most likely a temporary one too.

updated Oct 27 '10 by Guz