Ode to the Penultimate Snows
By Allison Cummings
When snow days still the city, we
goggle balaclavas to glide in grooves,
carve snow caves in nine-foot drifts
to hide in white hush, pack snowballs
to ambush siblings,
or sculpt ghosts in scarves,
skate above black lakes bearing tracks
of Ski-doos, fishing shacks,
and midnight dear
sniff the glittering
wind sifting through a crystal palace
of birch and fir
swaddling the stumpy ruts
of summer swear in sastrugi ridges,
fattening apples and quince,
sub-zero slowing the adelgid chewing
a steady path north.
Inside, frost feathers the windows
Each side of the solstice,
mirrors the hemlocks’ lace at dawn.
In portraits and paintings, we freeze winter’s
evanescent splendor like birthday
photos of elders our grandchildren
will not know or mourn.
The Beauty of New Hampshire
By Padraig Scallon
New Hampshire is a beautiful state
With lots of old and new roads to take
The road slopes through the mountain side
Where moose and turkey are easy to find
But the most beautiful part is not the view
But the power of friendship through and through
Friendship is a powerful thing. It’s in the minds of everything.
Friendship is also a powerful tool. It’s how I met a girl from school
This girl is smart, funny, and kind
I’m so glad our lives have intertwined
Now when I go to school I know
My friendship with her will only grow
I’m glad she’s my friend, oh yes, that’s true
Because friendship’s the beauty of New Hampshire too
Spring
By Skylar Cook
Yellow grass playing peek-aboo with the fresh snow,
Patches turning green,
Squirrels running through trees,
Mama birds preen their young,
Soft winds blow,
The sun beams slowly beat down,
Hot air warms my face,
Ice melts, and water rises,
Moist soil in between my toes,
This is spring in New Hampshire
Sunrise
By Penny Morhardt
Sunrise over tree tops
Rising up again
The horizon blooming with the colors of life
Wake up and feel the past behind you
The days of future laid out
For your world is beautiful
Morning and sunset
You will rise like the breeze on a moonlit night
And flee like a graceful dancer
Leaping, fluttering, on roads of pure hope and love
Hoping you find your way through the beauty of
New Hampshire
Rising with the Sap
By Monika Cooper
You would not call them blocks, those obscure streets
Where people live. Their driftings trace the hem
Of Manchester. I drove there once at dusk
My windows down, in the sleepy perfume
Of gardens and the insects’ dreamy jaw
And passed a house whose screen porch angled round.
The only lamps yet lit were deeper in.
It seemed a friends’ or family gathering.
A young girl, like a shadow through the screen,
Lifted her chin and tucked her violin.
I never heard the note and so it’s stayed
And lingered with me ever since, like smoke
From homestead stacks or purple lilac haze.
I had the silence of the violin
Before the flourished bow awoke the string.
An art you practice is an art not lost.
Here every season recollects far times
And roads less travelled keep faith with the past.
This Spring, I’ve driven past and watched the smoke
From piled deadwood, smokers, sugar shacks
And felt tradition rising with the sap,
Something that never died alive today.
Look up and read the signs. Our ancient friends
And enemies return. Much farther North,
Scientists watch a pair of mating wolves
That think they keep the sunlit glades alone.
And I myself have caught not one but two
Eagles aloft, at play with altitudes
And circles that don’t touch, while far below,
In full orchestral thunder and white burl,
Negotiating countless crevasses
In massive sides of mammoth granite blocks,
Bate the great waters of the Amoskeag.
Church on Piper Mountain
By Christopher L. Dornin
Our village church
Had a balding minister,
A white- haired congregation
And a two-part choir.
All of them are long dead.
We sometimes gathered in a high
Place far from the road.
Its vestries of blueberries shivered
Low to the rock in generations
of moss. We took the elements
up the climb to a granite throne
that faced the wind shadows
of Lake Winnisquam. A hawk
in slow, primal glide
circled the infinite vaults
of the nave. The nails that bound
together the worm-lettered
beams of a wilderness cross
rusted into feathers. We sang
a cappella in pews
sculpted by the Ice Age.
A man with a cane led
Us down the easy trail
To our altered lives in the valley.
Lucky Snake
By Sara Backer
Weeding – despair. Too late
To rescue my daylilies
from months of crabgrass,
pigweed, common couch?
I pull close to the root,
like tearing hair,
a careless giant’s grassy hair,
matted with vines and thorns.
Sticky with sweet, I stoop
to clear some breathing room
and call the lilies’ names:
Shadow Play, Cold Harbor,
Ruffled Apricot, Pink Pearl.
Between dead stalks, I find
a snake skin, white and dry
and whole. Two feet of pattern,
perfect – until I lift it. Oh,
little snake, I never saw you,
never knew you lived
here, too, but I am glad
to find the self you shed,
reminding me of all the good
that lives invisibly
as I am as invisible as you.
