First Snowfall
There is such beauty in the night. A sudden snowfall pushed the boundaries of the mundane back and fantasy flows—an outrageous mythology upon the landscape. The white challenges the moon, lights up a trampled ground and gives purity to all it covers. Shadows form where there were none, now a supple mystery to something once familiar. A week ago leaves were brocaded quilts beneath our feet, crackling with a season’s wind- driven music, tearing around eaves and scaring the haunts in the attic.
Behold a strange, alluring world transformed, made anew. Huge trees groan with icy burdens. The moon paints the top of pines with frostbite. Bushes split in two with alien gifts and powerlines are crystalized spider webs crisscrossing streets. The silence is complete.
A half-moon drifts
Across wintry sky.
Trees become monsters.
Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2016
Lady Nyo's Weblog 
September 19, 2016 at 8:52 pm
Oh how I love the way you write about snow! I love snow and all it entails, especially at night. Your haiku is perfection.
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September 19, 2016 at 8:55 pm
Beautifully haunting! ❤
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September 19, 2016 at 9:29 pm
What an amazing description of snow in the night and the heavy ice that burdens the trees…and everything else in its path. I love the leaves that are brocaded quilts…your images are exquisite, Jane. I so enjoyed this…just beautiful!
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September 19, 2016 at 9:37 pm
Thank youo, Bodhirose. Haibun is really fun.
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September 19, 2016 at 9:42 pm
Coming from you that is big praise. Haiku has a wonderful way to bring us into surrealist visions…..IF we learn these so important aesthetics. And they are, though started as Japanese, universal. The Serbians are writing wonderful and real haiku…and they attend to the ‘rules’ on haiku. For me, these rules give such guidance and are great signposts. I see them as railings over a rushing river.
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September 19, 2016 at 9:43 pm
Thank you, Sanaa.
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September 19, 2016 at 10:03 pm
I truly enjoyed reading about the snow, and the cat walking towards me. I moved south to get away from snow, but this poem brings back the noise of falling flurries.
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September 20, 2016 at 12:51 am
I have not read the first snowfall as dramatic as yours Jane. Love the changing of the season, and finally that silence is complete and trees become monsters!
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September 20, 2016 at 4:47 am
The magic of a winter-night, there is both a certain brightness and the monster of the shadows, there’s a comfort in the fears, a silence that can only break with your own footsteps – I’m so glad you have found your way to write haibun.
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September 20, 2016 at 4:48 am
Your descriptions are just delicious, Jane. This is one of the things I love about winter: Shadows form where there were none, now a supple mystery to something once familiar.
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September 20, 2016 at 7:57 am
A superb description of sudden snowfall and how it ‘pushed the boundaries of the mundane back and fantasy flows—an outrageous mythology upon the landscape’. Snow does strange things and you have captured them in your haibun so well.
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September 20, 2016 at 10:24 am
Thank you, Victoria. Being in the South, snow is rare, though I remember the snows of winter in the rural areas outside of Princeton, NJ. I treasure those memories. Thank you, for reading and your comment
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September 20, 2016 at 10:28 am
Thank you, Bjorn. I love winter, but down here in the South, there is little of snow, so when we get it…it’s memorable. And no one knows how to drive in it! Winter is my favorite season, the silence, the cleanness of the land, the sparseness of everything. A clean palette for thoughts. Of course, the sticky issue is always the haiku at the end. Trying to work with this.
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September 20, 2016 at 10:32 am
Hi Grace! I think I love the silence of winter most. Thank you for reading and your lovely comment. I’ll be over later this morning to read.
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September 20, 2016 at 10:35 am
LOL! Brian, I forgot about that …It’s s sizzling, a rain like sound. I used to watch out of a kitchen window for the first flurries when I was a child. didn’t go to bed until I saw them illuminated by the light above. Yes, snow can make a sound!
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September 20, 2016 at 10:38 am
Perhaps I see snowfall as dramatic because I’m living in the South? Miss it desperately. Thanks, Grace.
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September 20, 2016 at 11:32 am
“A week ago leaves were brocaded quilts beneath our feet, ”
My favorite line. But I am entranced and taken in by this entire haibun and then a bit shocked, jolted out of my calm with the last line of the haiku! Very nicely done.
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September 20, 2016 at 2:01 pm
Hi Lillian. Thank you. Haiku is the bomb. LOL! Haibun is the wrapping.
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September 20, 2016 at 4:39 pm
“The moon paints the top of pines with frostbite.” A lovely image. I do not enjoy winter, the ice storms, flurries, white outs..as I am expected to drive through them to work, but you’ve made it all so heavenly here.
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September 20, 2016 at 5:00 pm
I understand. Perhaps because we in the South don’t see if very often, we can mourn its absence. Thank you for reading and your comment.
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September 20, 2016 at 5:02 pm
And that I would understand too. 🙂
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September 26, 2016 at 4:25 pm
Oh this I felt in my chest….the shadows, the icy burdens, the frostbites, then the silence. Your words conjure such vivid imagery and emotion. Just love your writing.
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September 26, 2016 at 6:58 pm
Thank you so much! I’m pretty new to writing..really only about 10 years in. Mostly studied Japanese literature so a lot of my poetry has that twang. LOL! I think when we settle into it, we find our voice. And then we develop something of that voice as long as we try to keep it honest and close to our hearts.
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September 26, 2016 at 7:02 pm
You seem to be settling quite wonderfully. Im happy to have found you.
I’m new to listening to my voice. I don’t know if I’m a writer, I just love feeling things, so here I am, trying to listen and feel.
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September 26, 2016 at 7:06 pm
Oh, you definitely are a writer. What is the gate to writing??? There IS NONE! I’ve had other writers (mostly men) tell me that you have to have decades behind you. BS. That’s so typical of certain men…and it’s all about power and control with them. We break those chains and go on.
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September 26, 2016 at 7:08 pm
Thank you, I very much appreciate you saying so. Lol! The only chains I’ve ever felt are my own doing!
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September 26, 2016 at 7:10 pm
Kay, you are blessed there. I have felt this dismissal from others, and it hurts. The only way to recover your confidence, is to get away from these sort of writers/critics. You get more substance and courage when you can clean your life out of the nay sayers. family included.
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September 26, 2016 at 7:13 pm
I bet! I’m sorry you have felt that. I know it would do the same for me. The only writing I’ve ever done or shared, aside for a few poems many years ago, is here!
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September 26, 2016 at 7:14 pm
I saw that you have published works…kudos to you!!
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September 26, 2016 at 7:34 pm
Five so far….mostly poetry and a novella….(The Zar Tales) , but next spring, a full blown novel….”Kimono”
I’ve not stopped writing for 10 years…everything for a few years was upsides down….but I got the work done and on the computer. Some days it was writing for 17 hours ….but that is insane. You have to do it to realize it. LOL!
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September 26, 2016 at 7:36 pm
Keep going, Kay…the idiots fade into the shadows. It’s all about putting your work through a ‘refining fire; and that doesn’t mean submissions…could, but the hottest fire is your own.
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September 26, 2016 at 7:36 pm
Congratulations crazy lady! That’s impressive. So happy for you!
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September 26, 2016 at 7:37 pm
Thank you, Jane. I appreciate that lovely advice!
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September 26, 2016 at 7:55 pm
You are very welcome!
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September 26, 2016 at 7:56 pm
I appreciate that. I have been called ‘insane’ by non writers! A yoga instructor….LOL!
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September 27, 2016 at 12:16 pm
Lol!
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