Snowchild

This is another piece of writing from the same class as Lilly's (my blip from a couple/three days ago). This one is from Cheyenne, an immensely talented writer and artist, and it too is a villanelle from an assignment after reading Dylan Thomas's "Fern Hill." Here is the first of her seven stanza poem:

"Beneath the brightest stars and gleaming lights of sky cities,
the winter falls white against the world of stardust blue.
Midnight's shimmering cloak brings with it a plush blanket of snow,
draping the woodlands in the silence of eternal sleep.
The sun yawns early and drowsy,
the skies fade rich violet to gray;
and in the sleepy, stone house built by a loving father's hand,
a snowchild wanders out of the warmth to play."

The rest is dense in colorful imagery, and a mystical, whimsical tale of animals at play in the four seasons of the wilderness. I found it a fascinating, beautiful poem, but Cheyenne included a page of explanation. She said the inspiration was her childhood growing up in Montana, twenty miles from the nearest town, Laurel. She remembers the summers bringing dry weathers, and people losing their homes to fire, so her father built a house of stone he quarried and crafted himself (thus, the "stone house built by a loving father's hand."). She added, "My fondest memories are setting out at dawn with a sled in hand and meeting up with my friends to play in the ravines and under the wide, tall canopies of pine trees." And she closes with this: "Not only do the animals in this poem represent me and my childhood friends playing pretend, but they also represent the different aspects of winter, spring, and then summer. These seasons, in turn, represent the passing of time, and how one year can seem so like only a day."

Oh my. I told her that putting a letter grade on this somehow cheapens it, that it's something beyond a letter grade. I also told her that I feel that I took this job just so that I could get the chance to read her writing. 

The writings of Cheyenne and Lilly. Maybe they will have a book out before I leave this gig. If not, I know there's one soon to be out. I'm the lucky one with these two.