Seven by seven

This poem started with an unusually early snowfall. I’ll tell you the rest of the story after you read the poem. 

Snow falls softly on cedars; 

fat white flakes sift down, pile up; 

branches bend, protest in pain; 

white cones burden bunched berries; 

autumn grass falls flat below 

an ermine cloak;  drifting specks 

draw a veil across distance.  

Night settles softly on snow; 

fat flakes of darkness suck in  

the fading light, a black pall  

slung over a silent land; 

sounds soak into snow’s duvet; 

lights down the road blink,  

wink out, leave no one, nothing. 

Warmth spreads softly on faces; 

butter-bright tongues of flame tell 

tales of generations, circled 

close around the campfire-glow,  

soaking up the comfort of  

the pool of holiness that 

drives away the dark and cold. 

 by Jim Taylor, November 2020

Now the story. Sometimes, when would-be poets ask my advice, I tell them not to let the poem’s structure hamstring them. That is, don’t set out to write a sonnet, a rondeau, a sestina, with a defined meter and rhyme, because if you do, you’re performing an exercise – like playing scales instead of making music. Say what you want to say; if it doesn’t fit a predetermined template, too bad. 

            In this poem, I broke my own rule. As the snowflakes fell outside, I thought of the title of a novel, Snow falling softly on cedars (David Guterson, 1994). That gave me my opening line, with seven syllables in it. On a whim, I decided to try making all the lines seven syllables. And then I amplified that model, by making each verse seven lines too. 

            In this case, I think it worked.