cold

Numb fingers, red cheeks, stiff toes, waving branches… If there was one thing I would change about Vermont, it’s winter.

Every winter morning you take the car in Vermont, you have to wake up early to scrape the ice off your windshield. Then you have to shovel your walkway. And sometimes, when it’s really snowy, you have to dig out your car or pray for the snowplow to come by your street. Finally, when you climb into your car, the air is freezing, the windows are frosty, and the seats are cold.

Patrick Anderson
November 20, 2008

Vermont: The Best State in America

Vermont is a great, truly unique state. It is of the greatest in my opinion. I cannot think of any other state like it; whether it is spring, summer, winter, or fall, there is no dull season in Vermont. There is always something to do, always a hobby to take up, or sport to play. There are so many activities to choose from. Although, almost every sport in Vermont is fun, my personal favorite is skiing.
Skiing is one of the most popular sports in Vermont. There are very few people I have met that don’t either ski or snowboard. I have been skiing for about six years now and Stowe is my home mountain. Every chance I get I am up there. There is nothing better than getting onto the lift, with the wind in your face, and breathing in the cool crisp air at the top.

I am not from Vermont. I moved here only two years ago from the New York. No, I am not from New York City. I am from the Adirondacks. (They’re straight across Lake Champlain.) I don’t like Vermont for the leaves or for the mountains or for the maple syrup for the small towns and farms or for the snow and cold. In the Adirondacks, we have gorgeous leaves and the Adirondack Mountain Range. We lived right down the street from a sugarhouse. We lived in a tiny town and had plenty of farmers, cornfields, and cows.

Winter Carnival
A biting wind silently roars
A subtle knife tearing through me
Like cutting open a bursting net of dead fish
It spills into the now skeletal Carnival stalls
Aging them, to wash away the bawdy memories
while the empty colors fade
into a deeper haze of gray.

An arbitrating judge,
The Ferris wheel stands
High above the tumultuous hoards
Of confused and desperate emotion.
It deflects the sun’s pleading rays
Letting them fall rejected and useless
In the crisp sterile air.

You always said that life was a like a Ferris wheel
And I thought you meant it had its ups and downs
A roulette of good luck and bad
I thought you knew
You would always rise again
Under a golden crown of sunshine.
I thought that even in your sea of self
Pity, misery and shame,
You would still remember the smiles
Of crimson poppies, and eager crocuses,
The slobbery kisses of concord grape
A scent I thought impossible to forget

As we walk through the snow
The leaves do not crunch and the sun does not show
Grey light, icy breath, we talk

another one....

Welcome to the time of year
That fills the county side with a cold blanket
Snow, snow, there it goes
Gone with the time as it always does
Gone like ice cream on a hot day
The temperature will melt it all away

Winter's Truth

By Roberta Hemmer
Mill River Union High School, Grade 11

Shards of cold pierce my chest,
whistling winds battle frigid pines jagged with ice.
Frosty mountains probe the vast darkness;
Faint stars speckle in the deep velvet above.

Winter is the only season
Where the truth is not gaudily dressed
In brilliant greens, fiery reds and oranges,
Or dispelled by distracting tendrils of vines.

Only in winter are the wounds of the earth
Laid bare for all to see,
Ugliness and despair unrestrainedly raging,
Reminding us that life is not all awe and warmth and splendor;

Yet milky moon glow and
curving shadows cast doubt into my heart.
I stand and listen to the still of the chill air,
And in my heart, I understand.

Snow falling gently,
Beautiful fresh forever,
Frozen crystals falling.

Slush slopping dirty,
Cold, wet, depressing, ice.
Frozen slippery.

Warm coco, blanket,
Fireplace, dancing flames, family,
Fresh Christmas snowfall.

Blinding snow all around,
Can’t see, getting warmer, heat,
Ice slowly melting.

Trudging up the hill,
Base camp, then summit, were here!
Down the sledding hill .

Perfect snow day
Kyle Fowler

The end of a long school day and I can’t focus on what the teacher is saying, my mind is off in the woods on my sled. Going of the fresh snow, in open fields. I hear the bell and in was exited to go home and sit on the cold seat of my sled. Tonight is the first night the trails open.
This was also only my second year on my machine; my dad got me into snow machining. I and he both decided to go out this Friday because the trails would be untouched and the powder would still be fresh. The riding is best when all the powder is fresh. It allows you to just glide over the snow and not have to worry about tough spots.

Mud season.
It’s quite an interesting time.
There’s melting snow everywhere,
And random patches of ice,
Mixed in with the slippery mud
Under the carpet of decaying leaves.
The melting icicles dot the houses,
At least if there are any left,
And animals haven’t come out of hibernation yet,
But they are thinking about it.
The water,
Where the ice has melted off,

A small leaf that was once a shade of green
Floats slowly downward into a pile of its yellow fellows.
The sun descends into the horizon.
And cold comes out to play.
Lightly frosting everything with shards of crystal.
Freezing the now naked twigs and the roots from which they sprang.
The pale gray light of the suns brother moon,
Reflects off of the glitter falling from the heavens,

There is pain.
The pain of not knowing.
Caring
But not seeing.
Darkness
That shrouds you
In the blackness
That kills you inside.
You heart aches
With wanting,
Needing,
More that anything,
To know what happened,
But there is only
Silence.

Nobody speaks.
Nobody listens
As you call out,
Drowning in this black shroud
That is keeping you blank
And this wanting,
This needing,

I felt a little
As if I were drowning that day
The small blossoms of the flowers
Formulating rhythmic hypothesis,
(Like bad footnotes in a chemistry text book)
Sighing their white fragarence into the air,
As if they were the doves we had bought from a downtown market last summer,
Then released into the air to the surprise of the vendor.
The small Italian man had smiled at us,