POETRY WEEK 2025 CONTEST
Runner-up
BY LINDA HENLEY
Copyright is held by the author.
The afternoon sky turned silver
then, as the day wore itself out,
pewter grey.
Like a pleading child
it gave up resisting,
and settled in.
As night drew curtains
against the sleeping world
The first flakes fell.
I saw them through the panes,
slow at first, as though uncertain
where they would land, but always
down. Down to the tops of bare trees,
or caught in needles of evergreens,
blanketing everything white.
I knew it was time for snowing,
not only because it was winter,
but because we were all overwrought
by shouting and shooting at schools
and on streets, too close,
and too terrifying.
We needed the muffling, the silence,
the waiting for snow.
***
Linda Stewart Henley is an English-born American who now lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband. She has always liked snow. She is the author of three award-winning novels: Estelle, Waterbury Winter, and Kate’s War.
That poem works so well, hits you in the guts with those few lines late on, bookended by, and contrasted with, the muffling snow.
Thank you.