The Wonder of Winter
Exquisite white snowflakes sparkle as they dance and glisten in the air,
Huge, cumbersome, ugly yellow sign commands “Attention, Beware,”
I ski gingerly through trees, elegantly sprinkled and dressed in fresh, crisp snow,
Delicate angel crystals frostily kiss my face as they sparkle and glow
Zealous children are amused as they eagerly fly down the hills,
Collective happiness and contentment with chilly winter thrills,
Impatiently charging down steep slopes, raging completely out of control,
Giggling, screaming in laughter as one youngster loses his pole.
My heart beats faster and faster as the adrenalin releases and flows,
The wind burning and numbing my face, its acidity eating right through my clothes
Excitement of challenge, the exhilaration of feeling extreme speed
It’s lengthy run down but mind over matter, tells me I will succeed.
My heart beats like an engine piston as the blood rushes through me,
The tension builds as my veins pulse and I quietly slither past a tree,
The tiny ice crystals cling to my eye lashes, bitterly biting into my skin,
Rapidly descending, approaching destination as my sight begins to dim.
The chair lift hoists me to the heavens and I savor the magnificent view
Gazing with extreme pleasure at the horizon with the crisp clear skies astonishingly blue,
The summit is blissfully spectacular that I gasp as it takes my breath away,
The wonder of winter will linger in my memory for my years after today
This piece was written almost four years ago. I remember working extremely hard on it, especially trying to rhyme the lines together with each other. Looking at it now I see a lot of things that I wish I hadn’t done but didn’t really know at the time. For one, I was not at all comfortable with writing poetry as a freshman so this was a scary thing to do. I’m sure that I had the choice to not rhyme the poem, which I should have done, but as a freshman I had no idea how to write a good poem that didn’t have rhyming words in it. So, I took the easy way out which made for a poem that wasn’t as strong as it could be. Another huge thing that I notice was the fact that I put in these huge awkward words that seem to be out of place in this poem. It seems like I just went through the thesaurus and plugged in any old word that sounded impressive, which in the end made it seem less appealing. I do like this poem a lot, mostly due to the fact that I recall spending hours on it at times, trying to make it the best it could be. When I thought back to my freshman year writing experience, this piece popped up in my mind as the most memorable thing that I had written that year. So, I knew that I had to share that one over all the rest.
