This was inspired by this prompt about judgment, as well as the current Weekly Scribblings. Click the link to read more. 🙂
Winter
Snow and Mud and Ashes
This is for Linda Kruschke’s paint-chip poetry prompt, the first of this year. I’m not sure how well my “abstract poetry” turned out, but here it is, and I am sharing with DVerse OLN also.
A safety-orange traffic cone is brighter than day.
Snow blankets the ground, stifling any seedling
Which might emerge from what was once just mud.
Ashes from a campfire dapple snow with gray —
Seedlings push through the greatest of difficulties.
Angels can be made in snow, days made brighter,
Even those ashes speak of happier days gifted —
Some people have a raven’s shadow above their door, never lifted.
Sorry, when I am given “raven” as a prompt word, my mind always goes, “Poe.”
Icy Fingers
Today is one-liner Wednesday and JusJoJan day 6, and the theme that Linda gives us is “icy fingers.” I have tried to write a form called an American sentence.
I believe that two sets of icy fingers can keep each other warm.
Wintry Picture 🎄
This is for Linda G. Hill’s coloring club for the month of December. I keep forgetting to post my picture(s) so decided to do it now, especially since I didn’t write any post-worthy poems today. I colored several pictures this month, and here are two of my favorites.
Christmas Morning
For day 25 of the Christmas challenge — also, merry Christmas to all! The first line, which I put in quotes, is a sentence that someone said in a video reflection on this event, and that one line screamed to be put into a poem.
“Christ is born once more for us,”
Poor and helpless child:
In a manger He is laid,
By the world reviled
Other than by shepherds, and
Wise men who were trav’ling
From the East, to worship Him;
A new hope announcing.
Come to Jesus, Him embrace,
See His whole innocent face.
Cozy Words
This quadrille is for DVerse, and when I saw the post title, “In the Inglenook,” I thought it must be gibberish because I had never heard that word before! Maybe it’s because I live in California, where we have no need of fireplaces (or, therefore, of inglenooks 🙂 ). Anyway, I am happy to have learned a new word today; here is my attempt at a quadrille!
But first, the definition quoted in the original DVerse post:
For those of you not familiar with the word, here is a definition:
INGLENOOK (noun,English)- A close intimate corner by a fireplace where people gather for warmth; from ingle, a hearth (Scots)
Evergreen Tree
This is a bit late, but it is for FOWC: Preference and day 11 of the Christmas challenge, about the color green.
Into the Holiday Season
I wrote this tanka while watching Jeopardy tonight, because Alex Trebek said, “We are now well into the holiday season.” For those who don’t know, he passed away shortly before Thanksgiving, but because he had recorded several weeks of shows in advance, they are airing those. It was eerie that he said that on the show because he didn’t get to actually get into the holiday season. So, looking at my family’s Christmas tree, which we put up just a few days ago, I wrote this, also for the Christmas Challenge day 8.
Christmas tree watches
Alex Trebek on TV —
Enlighten the room
Ornamental memories,
Mementos hang from branches

The Word Is Born
This is for this prompt about solitude, as well as for day 7 of the Christmas Challenge, which is bright.
Born in relative solitude,
Laid in a manger to be soul’s food,
On this timeless silent night,
Illuminated by the star, bright —
And of course, the world’s Light —
Is born God’s eternal Word,
As an infant’s cry is heard.
We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming….
Some governors will have blood on their hands. If they think staying home is safer, they don’t realize that supposed refuges can run red with the blood of the despairing. Unsympathetic people call those who bring this fact to light “covidiots,” but I think that what’s more “covidiotic” is having a monolithic fixation on one issue. Depression and other issues make people really tired of Blursday following Blursday, wishing that “anthropause” would take it’s claws out of all the broken hearts.
Your regularly scheduled poem has been interrupted by this thing, because my brain has short-circuited.
Also, I know that the word “red” is supposed to be for a Christmas writing challenge, and this is the opposite of Christmassy. This was also inspired by a prompt at Poets and Storytellers United.
mistletoe is green,
Santa’s hat is red,
there are other things than Covid
which can make us dead
There’s your poem. 🙂