A Cross-Country Skier Pens Plein Air Poetry at the End of the Glide 

A selection of Sunday ski poems for Seven Days by Leath Tonino

**

when i sit here

i sit with a big view

mountains

sky

distant trees

and i sit

with a small view

twigs

snowflakes

toes of my boots

and i sit with a view

between these two

that i don't know

how to describe

it looks

like nothing

cold

i suppose

would be the closest word

**

jittery with cold

cursing in the quiet

of my mind

i watch winter light

that can't be named

close the day

and open the night

alpenglow

i suffer for you

i freeze for you

i call out to you

but of course

you ignore me

almost as if

i'm not here

**

someone skied way out here

where i like to ski

and built a snowman

he stands alone

in the white meadow

between the creek

and the mountain

facing west

i have never built

a snowman way out here

but it strikes me

that sunday after sunday

sunset after sunset

this is somehow

exactly what i have done

cold without noticing the cold

thinking the kind of thoughts

most people refuse to call thinking

there he stands

facing west

transfixed by the slow magic

day becoming night

**

i'm out here for the shapes

i'm out here for the colors

i'm out here for the warmth

i'm out here for the cold

i'm out here for the changes

the line i ski through change

then i sit

make myself a dot

it's not the line's end

but a new beginning

this sitting

i'm out here for this sitting

i'm out here for the outside

coming inside

turning me

inside out

**

snow blows

across snow

and i go deeper

into my puffy coat

squint against this

rushing place

numb fingers

numb toes

dusk finds me

sheltering in spruce

in the heart's

last heat

and i didn't even know

dusk was looking

**

out drinking on saturday

lots of people

loud music

wild dancing

the lights

the lights

and now this beautiful

quiet sunday

all snowy mountains

and passing thoughts

and changing light

won't-stay light

can't-stay light

thank-you light

**

hey guys

darn

i'm sorry

i mean

i'm not sorry

but i feel

kind of foolish

to have sat here

for an hour

and not said hello

how you doing

you're looking

totally great

as always

or maybe even

better than usual

this snow

is something special

really something special

it's piling up

pretty good

on you

on me

on everything

it's what got me

all distracted

this past hour

but you know

how it is

you're spruce

you live out here

**

smoking my pipe on a cold winter afternoon

watching smoke curl away

feeling it rise

through bare branches

rise through

and disappear

ah

this delicate touch

this soft reaching out

from my shivering