Shining fingers reaching down from eaves

trying to join the drifts below

Sunlight turns the drifts to piles of diamonds

transformed from simple fallen snow

Clouds of life stream from horse’s nostrils

As they race across a pure white pasture

Hoofbeats muffled in the glistening powder

which can be both blessing and disaster

Distant peaks against the azure sky

are cloaked in winter’s cover now

And life slows down as buried fields await

the springtime ritual of the plow

Smoke streams from the line shack chimney

and isolated men sit passing time

Wagons are replaced by sleighs

Silence broken by their chimes

Shining mountain streams still run and laugh

but ponds and lakes are frozen still as death

No ducks nor geese for many weeks now

They’ve fled the winter’s icy breath

The world that was, seems gone forever

as bears sleep soundly in their dens

Mountain passes disappear

Storms rage, then pass, then rage again

Another glorious, cruel season of fearful beauty

Nature’s power at it’s magnificent best

Another test of man’s resilience

Another winter in the West

©Robert De Groff 2009

Winter West

Photo by Randy Buckner aka Okie Sawbones ©2011