ski resort mascot
service dog all business
my life in your hands
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Posted on May 6, 2025
It took me years of training
to move my legs like this,
gliding over the granular
on long feet with curved width,
to make my legs flail left and right,
my upper half stock-still,
balancing and countering
so I won’t take a spill,
I’m going about forty-five,
but I’ve got no steel cage,
just long blades cutting through the white,
so long as it behaves.
Gravity is now my plaything,
as much as I am hers,
cross a mile in two minutes,
a small grace I have earned,
the blur of speed makes its own wind,
downs out the weaker noise,
just a fast bubble around me,
that calmness I enjoy.
Gray mercury says twenty-three,
but I don’t feel a thing,
you really only note the chill
when you have stopped moving,
my weight becomes a shifting ball,
it flows, then it slams home,
at other times it’s zero-G,
a feeling few have known.
Winter-brown trees are flashing past,
guiding the broad, white trail,
they remain still, branches don’t wave,
this time I am the gale,
it’s rare to find a day like this,
where crowds don’t slow you down,
when you can streak across the snow,
flying just off the ground.
I had never seen snow skis before 1976
Did not know about the rich man’s sport
Every time I see a ski photo I remember those news articles
Claudinet Longet is accused of killing her lover
Spider Sabich is dead, murdered.
Her ex-husband Andy Williams stands by her
True love.
It comes from the sky, white, powdery gifts,
upsets may, but gets us vibrating,
we call in from work, get cover for shifts,
no way we are not participating.
The lots are plowed roughly, but well enough,
we see the white streak of trails on the hill,
blast through the snow, there is never too much,
use rock skis so the good ones don’t get killed.
A run that’s boring exhausts us today,
sweating in the air that makes water freeze,
the soft, springy stuff on which we now play
lets us bound joyously through silent trees;
when it doesn’t come, the snow we must make,
but that’s hamburger, the real stuff is steak!
Two rust-red tubes running up the hillside,
by the wood's edge, hidden just in the trees,
they have water, and compressed air inside,
pumped up the mountain to hydrants steely.
Hoses conduct it to tall silver tubes,
snow guns that spray the white stuff on the trail,
coating brown grasses, hiding them from view,
building tall piles that some call snow-whales.
The groomers will come and flatten them out,
leave corduroy patterns on the long slope,
the skiers will come and race on a cloud,
they don’t like to wait when winter is slow.
One must be consistent in a business,
take five Mother Nature, we have got this.
Sitting astride a frozen mountainside,
eighty others waiting their turn to go,
on the slope blue and red gates a path scribe,
a man says, “racer ready;” so they know.
An hour passed, now it’s my turn to ski,
explode out of the gate with a kick-start,
frozen ruts are what I find greeting me,
muscles press down to absorb impacts hard,
frantic minute, a forward-moving fight,
the scrape of ice, gates flying past my face,
come faster still, can barely stay upright,
you win or fall, there is no second place.
Cross the line, frustration at the results,
tenths of a second leaves you in the cold.
Snowy week ahead and I shall ski,
Kissing clouds, where lifts deposit me to vaulted heights.
Ice-capped peaks, snow drifts, and speckled trees,
I consume nature's eye candy, in heart-stopping bites.
Now zooming downward, my edges carve along,
Giddy that they shriek, a downhill skier's theme song!
Slippery hills in this snowy week
Knees bent; more speed needs a tweak.
I’ll snowplow, turn skis stop in stance
In and out like an ice-ballet dance,
No turning back on a bunny slope!
Gripping tightly up-hill to the tow rope.
Slipping, sliding,
Kicking, gliding -
Iffy my technique.
It's a snowy week.
Never skied before -
Got to do this more...!
written 21st January for Julia's Skiing contest
Silent flakes, falling soft, hence lightly
Kindling dreams, stirring up a soul’s belief
Inspirations – graceful, glistening politely
Inviting hope, beginning the heart’s relief
Never forget winter’s laughter is slightly
Glad for snowy week’s wonder, thus brief
Skiing Poetry Contest
Julia Ward
January 16, 2023
How many terrified cats can a ski lift hold?
The cats were mewing so big and bold.
The lift was shaking, swaying to and fro
“Meow Meow!”, the cats cried, “don’t let go!”
Some ladies enjoy riding on their brooms
All over the house, into all the rooms
Gran rode the ironing board
Only skis she could afford
Off she'd ride, before ironing resumes
Limerick Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Lisa YY
July 17, 2022
powdery white snow
has been falling overnight ~
let’s head for the slopes
Fall or Winter Holiday Haiku Poetry Contest
sponsored by Tania Kitchin
11/17/21
All ski hills split on the same night.
Landfills beneath were a terrible sight.
Stench-like gasses were such a blight.
Large rats exploded out like dynamite.
Ridiculous ugly unseemly sight.
Gave school children an awful fright.
Screaming bloody murder big and bright.
As rats carried them off into the night.
There is a guy whose first name is Dogde
His middle name happened to be Rodge
He got teased in School
The kids were cruel
Now he’s teaches ski at a ski lodge
*Inspired by Jan’s Name And Shame poem.
Alexis Y.
02/02/2021
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