Old Man Winter

By Annette Gagliardi

Snow whiffs from branches—
no thaw in sight

the white slick of January
cold enough for unseen flames

heats the blistering cold,         leaping
across space like Jack Frost

etching my window
silent scratches, making light years

string time — broken chrysalis
and webbed wonder

a caravan of long-lashed camels searching
for warmth like finding water

in the blazing desert
thread the days with a meager

wisp of transformation
smell the sweat of winter’s chill

sizeable piles of relaxing snow
let old man winter die a dawdling death

Partial Eclipse

Grey-brown creeps
                        over the horizon
on its way to sundown,
                        shading the bridges,

ridges of trees and hills and buildings
            as it gathers the troops of night

for a full-scale
            assault on the lightness
of midday, offering another brand
            of illumination

that supplies shadow by the bucketful,
            adds nuances to all the silhouettes

not seen in the brightness
                        and chases
the clarity of day away.
            “I surrender.” I say

in my most
            mysterious voice.
Like a lover, shadows oblige my request
            embracing daylight     and me with it.

We are the penumbra
            cocooned
 in the gathered gloaming.

BIO

Annette Gagliardi looks at the dimly, tinted shadows and morphed illusions that becomes life and finds illumination. She sees what others do not and grasps the fruit hiding there, then squeezes all the juice that life has to offer and serves it up as poetry – or jelly, depending on the day. Her work has appeared in many literary journals in Canada, England and the USA. Gagliardi’s first poetry collection, titled: A Short Supply of Viability, and her first historical fiction, titled: Ponderosa Pines: Days of the Deadwood Forest Fire were both published in 2022. Visit her author website at: https://annette-gagliardi.com