week13-08

Congrats to the 12 students whose work was selected for dramatic presentation the first week of December by professional actors with the Vermont Stage Company at FlynnSpace in Burlington. The shows were sold out and the audience response to the students' work was fantastic. We know that it is an exhilarating feeling to have one's work performed on stage. We will be choosing additional works for another presentation of Winter Tales by the Vermont Stage Company on First Night/Burlington. Stay tuned.

Click here to read the Winter Tales performed by Vermont Stages Click "read more" below to see the list.

By Celeste LeBlanc
Lake Region High School, Grade 12

There was this little girl who was about eight years old and lived in a farm house on top of a huge hill. She had three older siblings, two brothers and a sister. It was a winter day with the sunlight reflecting off the snow, blinding her. Bundled up with sweaters, jackets, thick wool socks, sweat-pants, snow-pants, hats, mittens, and scarves, she wanted to go sledding, but someone had to go with her. The two brothers came out of the house, running toward her and she panicked. She tried to move but her short legs in the high snow wouldn’t let her. The impact of the boys put her face down in the cold, white cloud. After she got herself in the upright position, they asked her if she wanted to go sledding. Of course, she said. That is what she wanted to do.

Michael Patnaude
Charlotte Central School, Grade 8

His bright blue eyes gleaming at the white wonderland
Sitting on the sparkling speckled ice
No worries
No stress
Just pure relaxation
Nothing comes to mind
Just him and the powdered hills
Gleaming mountains with black dots
No noise with the half-eaten moon
With the lightly darkened sky and the shining stars
He cannot fall asleep

By Brittany Gates
Lebanon High School, Grade 12

The storm came from the North,
The snow clenched at my feet until I couldn't feel my toes.
I longed to be home by the fires warmth and I'll never forgive Jack
Frost for nipping at my nose.

By Justinah Duhaime
Hartford High School, Grade 12

My favorite black maple in the back yard is a miserable
drunk.
Gangly and alone, she licks the intoxicating snow
flakes from her toes, as
her body is relentlessly stabbed, her syrup inevitably stolen.

In the mud of spring, she is unwillingly
sober.
But when the green meadow warms her soul, at last,
she gathers her thread and sews herself a thousand gloves,
gracefully protecting her fingers, cracked and fragile from a winter binge.

By Moya Cavanagh
Browns River Middle School, Grade 8

Winter’s dress
Is a gown of grace
A veil of white
To hide her face
Gleaming satin skirts
Billowing,
Hems of frosty lace
Pursuing.
Garbed in
Winter’s
Icy Dress,
Chilled to the bone
You lay in wait
Upon that hill,
That winter’s day

For the conquest of winter
Is difficult to escape,

By Kim Horne
Lebanon High School, Grade 12

I’ve never been able to make up my mind about winter. I know that it isn’t my favorite season, but I can’t say that I completely hate it either. I love goofing off with my friends with a snowball fight, sledding down a hill made slippery from the snow, making snow angles, and especially coming inside to relax and sip hot cocoa while the feeling to your fingers comes back through the hot cup they’re grasped around.

My Snowflake Blanket

By Sarah Bigelow
Essex Middle School, Grade 7

The snowflakes dance
Around my shoulders
Enveloping me
In a thick, warm blanket
My snowflake blanket

I cannot breathe
But I don’t care
The snowflakes will
Take care of me
While I’m in my snowflake blanket

I am falling, falling, falling
Into a white kaleidoscope
Watching the intricate patterns

By Meta Bergwall
Lebanon High School, Grade 12

My very first car was a Volvo station wagon. It had been my great-grandmother’s and was 20 years old. Now just hearing that it was my great-grandmother’s car was enough to make people laugh; however, it did not stop here. The speedometer was broken, the radio didn’t work and although it was an automatic it would often stall. Every day was a new adventure with that car; I seemed to always find a new problem when I went somewhere, which would just add to the list that my friends and I laughed about whenever I drove.

By Hayley Andrews
Oxbow High School, Grade 8

I sit at my window waiting
for all the snow to melt.

I wait for the sun to come
out from behind the clouds
to warm me up from the cold
nights.

I lay down in my bed to hear
the crunching of the cold sheets
underneath me.

I hear the sound of the heater
warming up.

I watch as all the Christmas specials
come on.

By Jess Hstings
Lebanon High School

It’s a cold winter night,
Snow flakes float gently on the wind,
The moon is full,
Full of light that glows
Light that beams through branches,
To reach the forest floor.
We are the only ones awake
The moon and I,
I walk softly through the forest
Listening to the song of the night.
The wind whispers, the air is crisp
The forest calms me,

By D'Arcy Morrie
Lebanon High School, Grade 12

Snowflakes started to fall
As I sat on my bed
When the house is quiet as the dead
Inside myself I feel so small

The snow started falling harder
It started its swirling
I felt like going outside and twirling
Where my heart would beat faster

In the morning I awoke
I got on my boots and coat
I went outside to have fun

By Joseph Milius
Lebanon High School, Grade 12

Winter unsheaths a frosty edge
where icy breath is shown in air
toddlers in mittens hold the ledge
while couples have warm drinks to share
teenagers find romance on lakes
adults rediscover fires
grandparents find wraps for cakes
and heaters used more then dryers
A dusting of snow covers the earth
as families sink into their couch

By Amber Moulton
Lebanon High School, Grade 12

winter splinters
it looks like fun
standing at the top of the hill
awaiting a single thrill
sliding faster and faster

winter splinters
it looks like fun
snow hitting your face
up ahead there's a tree
a big one you can't see
screaming and laughing

winter splinters
it looks like fun
the tree gets closer
swerve to the right

By Shaylee Monette
Lebanon High School, Grade 12

Snow drifting, falling, settling,
Swirling crystals melting on my tounge,
Scarfs wrapped tightly to my kneck,
Scuffing through the light powder covering the lawns,
Christmas lights glowing in the windows and trees,
Small children sledding, building snowmen and forts,
Chimneys smoking and giving off a warm aroma.

The Snowflakes
By Emily Murphy
Essex Middle School, Grade 7

The wind blows a great gust of wind,
as the snowflakes twitter,
dance,
elegantly falling from the sky.

Down, down, down they fall from the sky.
Past the children in a snowball fight,
past the many houses with fireplaces,
Warm.
The snowflakes are nearly done their fall,

By Hanna Kingston
Mount Mansfield Union High School, Grade 10

First they bestowed upon the fragile green globe
Bushels of wild berries and lush fields adorned in roses
They fastened trees of every form and every color where a hill rolls, where a calm wind blows, where the water flows
And we harvested both the forests and the lonely tree to enclose us

By Zac Brown
Woodstock Union High School, Grade 10

Winter snow
Chases away the crow
The corn is gone
The fire is cold
and the woodpile is low

By Sean Bjornsson
Woodstock Union High School, Grade 10

Sitting on the lift, going up, up, up.
Beautiful and white, sloping away far below me.
Brilliant sunlight, crisp cold, beautiful clear blue sky.
I turn around and take in the incredible view.
Calm.
I'm at the top, I'm ready.
Off I go! My sights set at the bottom.
Wind rushing around me, stinging my face.
Faster, faster, faster!

By Leah Thomas
Woodstock Union High School, Grade 10

My frozen hands carefully slipped the iron bit into Dusty’s mouth, looping the brow band around her ears. Mounting up I sat down in the deep leather seat of the western saddle, gently pressing my booted feet into the mare’s furry sides we moved off, a swirling gust of snow covering any and all tracks. The red barn slowly grew distant as they trudged through the snow, almost knee high, it was light so the horse could easily move through it. I was outfitted in long johns, jeans, snow pants, three shirts a sweatshirt and a windproof, water proof jacket, must have looked like the abominable snowman. My hands were gloved with soft leather gloves, and a thick woolen hat was atop my head, sighing softly I lifted the reins up a tad, letting Dusty know to move on. Swiftly collecting her lope I thought about the warm fire I had left behind to go and search for some lost cattle, I knew our ranch depended on them, but why did they have to go missing now, during a snowstorm. Spying what I assumed to be the last of our fence line, we slowed to a trot as I searched for the wooden part to jump. Finding it I asked Dusty to pick up the lope and steered her towards the wooden railing. She flew over it, clearing the small jump with a foot to spare, moving back into a trot I moved onwards for a while more before topping the crest of a hill.

By Dylana Drolette
Burlington High School, Grade 10

Life is a "place and bake" cookie. It’s quick, it’s easy, it’s normal and overall, it’s good. We get caught up in the same routine, day after day. I know I do. School, sports, work, homework, sleep. It’s been that way as long as I can remember. However there’s a time of year that everything seems to change. It gets a little happier, and maybe even a little less stressful. People smile more, forget about budgets. And that diet they’ve been sticking to for the past month? Might as well wave it goodbye. That time is from the middle of November to the beginning of January -- the holiday season.

By Sierra Cruikshank
Rochester High School, Grade 9

I pushed the door open,
A cold gust of wind blew into my face.
I don't really like the winter.
I looked out on the plain colorless terrain.
Egck. I thought.
Six months of this.
I am truly in the wrong place.
I took in the raw air
It burned my nostrils and throat.
Closing my eyes I dreamed of a much warmer place.

I am waiting
Where are you?
I am waiting
When will you get here?
I am waiting
The leaves are gone
I am waiting
The costumes are put away
I am waiting
The turkey has been eaten
I am waiting
There are icy puddles
I am waiting
The day is drawing near
I am waiting
The lights have been strung
I am waiting
The ornaments have been hung
I am waiting
When will you come?

I am waiting

By Sophie Glickman
Leland and Gray Union High School, Grade 11

Robbie sits outside. His fingers and toes are freezing. Snow has sneaked into his mittens at his wrists and into his boots at their openings, melting and seeping through his socks. The rest of his body, save his red protruding nose, a ski-jump nose, as his mother calls it, is too hot. Perhaps there is such a thing as too many layers? He feels himself sweating, and realizes with a flash of anger, that he no longer wants the hot chocolate he's anticipated devouring on his return inside; his only real motivation to play outside is ruined.

By Christopher Kvedar
Champlain Valley Union High School, Grade 10

Your bus drops you off at your house. You feel the shock of cold blow down your bare neck as you get off the warm bus into an icy cold breeze that makes you shiver and scrunch up your neck so hard, that it hardly shows above your jacket collar. It has been so cold outside these days that small puddles of water have frozen into hard solid sheets of ice that look like crystal clear sheets of glass embedded in the cement. It is so cold that when you exhale air, it comes out in big clouds of steam as white as the smoke that rises out of the chimney of a maple shack. You get the mail from the mail box and as you head for the front door of your house, a small white speck falls gently on your nose, but melts away quickly. Then you look around to see many white specks falling from the sky covering the frozen ground. There are only two words to describe this, “It’s snowing.”

By Julia Gilbert
Main Street Middle School, Grade 7

A breeze makes the snowflakes dance on their slow descent.
I catch one on my tongue, their beauty fading quickly,
As the melancholy silence fills up the warm feeling inside of me.
The heavens are clouded and hazy from an overcast sky, draining the joy from our lives,
Yet as the sun emerges a smile creeps onto my face,

By Callan Suozzi-Rearic
Champlain Valley Union High School, Grade 10

I am winter’s child, living
On earth’s surface of green and blue
Watching billows of clouds
Bring in soundless, drifts of snow
That are tear drops frozen on the
Face of mother earth as she
Cries for the lost protection
She once had to give.
I just kick back and watch
The colors floating through
The crystallized iced over
Mountain ranges of beauty
Danced on by ice princesses and
Queens who created, the innate
Pictures as they dance their
Way into the clouds
I just sit back and say that
I am the narrator, of my own
Story and my own voice of
Joy because when that first
Flake hits the color brown
Ground in the middle of
A November day, and covers
Up the imperfections, of our world
I just sigh, because the silence is.
And I am Mother Nature’s daughter
And through the sugar coated outside
You can still see the dried out world
Peaking through the edges.

By Ryan Hurd
Charlotte Central School, Grade 7

One single snowflake falls on my face
I have been blessed with its pattern of beauty and grace
This one single snowflake keeps me in love
From where it fell I look up above
Then more start to fall
They tickle my cheeks
I wish this feeling would last for weeks
The fields are being covered with this sparkling fluff