Sean McGarvey of Gray forgoes shoveling in favor of taking a pen and and paper into the pristine white expanse of Maine after a snowfall.

Winter Spirit on the Maine Coast

I set out for a walk,
In the gray December dawn,
Knowing not where I was going,
So long as I was gone.

For I was seeking solitude to sit down and write,
With natural sound in natural light.
And so to escape while the white plain of snow was pristine,
I packed pen and paper,
Pulled on my boots, and beat a hasty retreat.
With salt on the cars and snow in the street,
I felt like an actor in a black and white scene,
And while entering the woods on the outskirts of town,
Glittering snowflakes began drifting peacefully down.
I was deep in the woods when I met the first visitor on my tour,
He made his decent like a red rose thrown to a matador.
The cardinal landed on the white forest floor.
He peeped at me as if to ask, "Is there anything wrong?"
Then looking to his left he called out brightly,
I looked past him to where a birch leaned slightly,
(Like a curious eaves dropper).
It was there that I saw the object of his song,
His female counterpart dressed in copper.
But alas, they had errands to run and could not stay,
They turned together, took to their wings and darted away.

The wind began to rise,
And the icy coating on the branches above made a chattering sound,
Like the din of a rain stick turned upside down.
So I adjusted my scarf and hastened on eastbound,
And crested a ridge overlooking the beach.
The fog, like a cataract, had covered the lighthouse's eye out on the reach.
Her beam twisted and turned pointing out the rocks below,
Granting ships safe passage through the oncoming storm.
There, in the wind, the fog was drifting and changing,
Taking on form,
Shifting, rearranging.
I saw then the ghost of a mariner walking on the shore.
Home to the coast of Maine once more.