January 6, 2011

Winter Vignettes Snow-laden January clouds hang like a rumpled gray blanket over the brooding winter landscape. Along sloping ridges, leading to scrub-clad ravines, patches of old snow furtively hide in the umbra on the shaded lee. A flock of raucous starlings swirl in undulating patterns, ever alert for a meager tidbit hiding in the frosted amber grass. From the fireplace chimney, pungent blue-haze smoke curls in adagio rhythms beckoning me to warm at its glowing hearth.                                       Mesmerized by the mood, dancing embers invite me closer— to embrace the magic of the moment.                                                          Charles Clevenger New Boston, Ohio   My Winter’s Delight I love walking through snow covered fields etched with brown weeds in a dazzling, glistening world of diamonds. Soon I find a field mouse’s faint prints ending under leaf-covered earth. A rabbit’s track circles a pine to disappear in snow-laden brush. I follow deer tracks to a fallen log where I sit and listen to silent snow falling around me and marvel at the solitude. I am captured by the silence and peace it brings, until in the distance I see a limb fall that shatters the silence as a crow joins in. Then the silence returns and only the snow falling on a dead leaf nearby breaks the stillness. Edna Keffer Portsmouth, OH From: “POEMS and other writings”   The Dawning of New Blessings The Lord’s blessings are new every morning. They are ours with each day’s dawning. His joy is like a babbling brook and rill, His peace like the song of the Whippoorwill. His word is like a lamp unto my feet, Guiding to those I am destined to meet. His hand is upon me to comfort the lonely, And I trust His infinite Wisdom only. The dawn holds new excitement every day, As I begin by communing and kneeling to pray. The Lord’s mercies are new each morning. He forgives and forgets at day’s dawning. His love never fails; each morn is brand new, Making sons and daughters of me, and of you. His yoke is easy, His burden is light, He lifts us from agony of long sleepless nights. He scatters the darkness of a soul filled with sin, Then opens the spirit placing new life within. O how could I shun this wonderful friend? When He gave me His Son to save to the end. Virginia Davis Wiseman Goodyear, AZ Formerly of Wheelersburg