Fast Snow

The following piece is approximately a year old and one that was an exercise in a writer's workshop I used to attend on a weekly basis. The signal phrase was "fast snow" and these words were a required presence in the piece. Inspiration stemmed from the weather, a splendid poem by Lisa Olstein and from one of the dark crevices of my mind.

Fast Snow


The earth, this intertwining of

oxygenated verdure, saline seas

and chaotic limbs

is warming by imperceptible degrees,

and yet this sonorous blast of destruction,

of despoilment,

as white venal flakes of frozen rain

descend at an exponential speed,

this fast snow scarring pearlescent

shoulders, bruising ashen, protruding

bellies, producing irrefutable marks,

wounds billowing with bulbous pus

no suture could seal,

and yet she strides through

this barrage of blinding color,

untouched, virginal, saintly.