SnowBound

The unending snow and winter weather led me to search for my old winter prayers and poems. They help cheer me up when I am snowbound, which seems to be every few days….

In a Bronx Ice Forest

I walk in a magical garden
Immersed in God’s icy miracle
Jeweled icicles dangle from branches
Like frosty Faberge surprises

Star flies beam up to crystal forests
Dancing dizzily in
diamond dusted
tinsel tossed
tree tops

Frozen fringe frolics on ev’ry twig
Each tree has become a star catcher

What secrets sleep in silvered silence?
What wonders await in wintry webs?

Out of pain filled snow shadowed darkness
God gifts us with graced growth
Glist’ning in
the frigid
emptiness.

© E.M. Ramos 3/1996


Psalm 147: 12-20

Jerusalem, give glory!
Praise God with song, O Zion!
For the Lord strengthens your gates guarding your children within.
The Lord fills your land with peace, giving you golden wheat.

God speaks to the earth, the word speeds forth.
The Lord sends heavy snow and scatters frost like ashes.

The Lord hurls chunks of hail.
Who can stand such cold?
God speaks, the ice melts;
God breathes, the streams flow.


Prayer of the Season

Shall we praise you, hail-hurling God, in winter’s splendor,
in the grace of snow that covers with brightness
and reshapes both your creation and ours?

Or shall we curse the fierce cold
that punishes homeless people and shortens tempers?

Blessed are you in the earth’s tilt and course.
Blessed are you in the sleep of winter
and in the oncoming Lenten spring.

Now and then and always, fill these lands with peace.
Amen.