An Icy Challenge

by Julia Buckley

These lovely pictures, captured in Versoix, Switzerland after an ice storm, are a stark reminder of the cold that is coming. It reminds me of Robert Frost's famous poem "Fire and Ice," in which the speaker surmises that either theory of destruction, an ice age or a heat wave, is an equally potent agent for destroying the world. But if we were to express what these photographs show us in poetic form, I think that the spare lines of a haiku might best capture this stark, frigid landscape.

My writing challenge to you today is to compose a haiku that captures your feelings about icy weather.

Here's mine:

Frigid Jupiter
Sends silver, wintry greeting
In layers of ice.

Share your harbingers of winter with the compressed language of this Japanese poetic style.

I look forward to reading your images--they'll prepare me for the winter holidays and the frigid days of the New Year!! Remember that the first day of Winter is December 22nd this year.

And, to borrow a sentence from the wildly popular GAME OF THRONES, "Winter is coming." :)