Winter Looms
Jack Frost has brushed the mountains’ crests
And highland nymphs are shivering,
The blackened mauve below the snow
Has set my heart to quivering
To be among the old growth firs,
And tasting icy alpine air—
This flatland life’s no life for me,
I’d rather pass my days up there.
Robert Elkins lives on Fidalgo Island in Washington State’s Salish Sea. Retired from high tech and industrial electronics, and commercial aircraft interiors reconfiguration design as well as hunting and fly fishing the high Cascades. He has previously published two books of poetry.
This is a perfect little piece of description and a statement of opinion. “The blackened mauve below the snow” is a very artful construction of internal rhyme (“below” and “snow”), and the visual contrast of black and white. The poet’s decision not to repeat an ABAB rhyme scheme after the first one was a subtle touch — he avoids a singsong quality (important to sidestep in a short rhyming poem), and the slight dissociation lets the reader experience his freedom and unwillingness to be kept in “the flatland life.” This is definitely an outdoorsman’s poem. I’d like to see this guy’s gun collection.