A star is the most simple thing I consider beautiful.
Talviset Ajatukseni
This is my, AgentCheese's gift for yoyoflux!
I want to start with a short, mostly real story (that functions as justification for using the CSS), the rest is poetry.
Hirvi
When I was a child, I lived in the woods for a few years.
I had lived in a city before, but my family decided that we didn't have enough room (also, my mother loves gardening), so we moved out. It was mostly awesome, our house was large, formerly belonging to eccentric artists and built in the 70s, so we had many oddities like a circular room with blue walls, a weird red sofa, a window facing upwards and a round table in the middle.1 One of our bathrooms was entirely orange. There was a beatiful, but odd japanese painting of a rooster nailed to the wall. Our garden was enormous and you could really see the stars at night, since the nearest city was far away. There were many things like that.
When I say woods, I mean it. I didn't know the name of the place where I lived, I just said I lived in Waylong,2 which was the nearest place with a grocery store. It was a few kilometres away. I had very few neighbours (closest lived 50 meters away), though a lot of wildlife. I regularly saw deer, vipers, mouses, ravens, lynxes, foxes and more. We also had our own little lake, where you could see the shadows of fish at summer, and could iceskate in winter. As I said, awesome.
But there were two things I didn't like.
First, my schoolride became 30 kilometers longer and took 45 minutes more, though we live in Finland, so I could still take the bus, luckily.
Second, the mooses. The finnish word for moose is "Hirvi". The finnish word for terrible is "Hirveä". Pretty similar, as you might notice. I don't consider it a coincidence.
We had mooses.
They were only really seen at night or early in the morning, but their presence was always felt. They were the only true danger.
One particular early morning, I was on my way to the busstop. It was very dark, but I had a decent front-facing light on my bike. Suddenly, I saw movements in the forest to my left. I stopped, partly out of fear, partly of out foolishness but partly because I was curious. A large shadowy figure approached out of the trees. It was a moose. I tried to look small and non-threatening, without moving too much.
It's not very easy to describe a moose, so if you've never seen one I'd google it, but it was massive, with enourmous antlers, dark brown fur and blood-speckled bulging eyes. It stopped right before me, in a way that my light hit only its face. It towered above me. I could hear it breathing, it was less than two metres away.
I looked into its eyes, and I realised it was looking back. It had figured that I wasn't a threat, but it communicated suprisingly complex thoughts through its primitive stare.
"You are intruders. Mankind could never survive naturally here.
Something protects you from the cold winds.
I do not know what it is.
But it doesn't protect you from us.
We have been here before you.
We endure the cold, we do not hide from it like cowards.
We see your lights and comforts from the darkness.
You cannot understand.
The protections you have also brings ignorance.
You do not see the other ape-like creatures.
You do not hear their whispers.
You do not feel the hunger.
You can not experience the truly terrible."
I could see fear in its eyes. It knew something I didn't.
Then, it turned and ran away.
When I told my parents about it, I got a car ride to the busstop for the rest of the time we lived there.
Hope you liked that story!
Simpler than snow
The wind plays with my hair
Dances around without care
Snow descends on my face
Winter, the oldest of days
The Mousekeeper's Haiku
Under the soft snow
The Mousekeeper scurries about
Tending its garden
Long-gone playful things
A deer ran through the woods
Hopping shockingly high
Its antlers reach for the sky
Brushes against branches,
They grasp for it
But yet the deer doesn't stop
It continues, the young buck
doesn't seem to mind
that the antlers are stuck
a few metres up
Long after
I see them and wonder: why?
Winterwatcher
I walked the frozen road,
as it was snowing silently.
The shadow-whispers retreated,
when I took your hand,
something unknown
was watching, it had noticed us.
Two very wary children
walking home in the winter night,
way out in the woods.
Odotus
I sat on the busstop next to the motorway
Only a thousand meters from my childhood
I felt warm, while the winter was gray
Even though it shouldn't it put me in a good mood
The World was dying, I knew it was that way
But it was still waiting for me
So I didn't take the bus that day
You
The chilly softness of the white crystals
wasn't enough.
The Blue Tit, resting against the branches of the Birch
wasn't enough.
The squirrels playing on the frozen lake ice
wasn't enough.
The footsteps of the Moose by our little garden
wasn't enough
But you too saw those things
and I saw your smiles
and then I was happy.
The Sunmists
I saw the Northern Lights
They're gray and dull
Like smooth clouds
In the dark night
But they writhe
and pulsate
Like waves
unseen
from below.
A Heartbeat from the sky.
.
The stars were beautiful
Terrible and powerful
yet now are the sights
simple points of lights
I seldom look up,
what a shame
I bet a thousand thousand years ago
Something else
thought the same
Nightplay3
The light dances its playful dance.
It is golden and has a strange shine.
If you take a walk on this snowy night,
you will find a magical little treasure.
A lit lantern, on a lonely grave
With a faint scent of beach and sea.
The old moonman up there looks down
Sees the little light and smiles.
One last happy memory lives on
Of what has we still have and what is already gone.
The lights spin happily around,
Jumping and laughing in a ring.
Although the night is cold and the wind blows far
The lamp lights up like a small shooting star.
Merry christmas!