Carved cornices
perch at
roof's edge.

Plows heap
mountains in
every driveway.

Finger drifts
skitter across
cracked asphalt.

Penitents, thin
snow spikes
reach skyward

marking off
these hills,
feather beds

for giants
drowsing beneath
cold eiderdown.

Warm days:
icicles crash
and shatter.

Sun cups
cradle spindly
tree trunks.

Next storm
always on
its way.

This poem was sparked by that old chestnut about the Inuit having 100 words for snow. Thinking of that led me to researching different English words for snow. I was particularly charmed by cornices (those wind-carved glaciers on rooftops), finger drifts (like tiny snow dust devils), penitents (spikes of hardened snow), and sun cups (the places around trees where the darkness of the bark creates just enough warmth to melt the snow.)

Photo source: my flickr photostream. This was taken last week, before a few days of rain tamped down these fluffy drifts, but the world outside my window is still almost entirely white. Now it's just ice-hard instead of cloud-soft. This may be the shortest month on the calendar, but the wait for March can feel eternal! Of course, March up here means snow, too. But at least it will mean that the snow is on its way toward eventually ending.