21.01.2026 | dVerse Poets Pub
This poem began as a prose piece written for Esther’s Writing Challenge and has been reshaped here into a poem for dVerse Poetics: Snow.
https://dversepoets.com/
SNOW
Growing up on the west coast of Norway,
winter was not a suggestion.
It arrived.
Snow settled
in deep, quiet drifts.
Lakes froze solid
and trusted us with blades.
Hills became racetracks
for akebrett and kjelke,
cheeks burning
with cold and laughter.
Later, winters softened.
Ice grew cautious.
Snow learned to leave early,
surrendering to rain.
By the time we left,
winter was mostly grey —
more memory
than weather.
Then came 2009.
The exception.
A real winter.
Snow before Christmas.
My husband and oldest son
shovelling paths
through white silence.
Inside,
I was holding a different storm:
two toddlers,
a dog in labour,
towels, urgency, reassurance.
I turned a puppy
that refused the world —
motherhood
in its rawest form.
When I returned,
breathless,
I thought something was wrong with me.
Snow.
Everywhere.
Unnoticed and determined,
my daughters had carried winter inside
in small buckets.
The floor sparkled.
Tiny footprints confessed.
The house
had become
a winter wonderland.
I stood there —
between disbelief
and laughter —
and understood:
This, too, was snow.
Not just weather,
but memory
being made.
The kind
that doesn’t melt.
🪶
💫Maggie
The Afterlove Voice 💫
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