wtpodcasts

Editor's Note: This piece will be presented at the Winter Tales productions of Vermont Stage Company, Dec 3-7 at FlynnSpace. Reading on this podcast and during the performance is Liz Gilbert, an 8th grade actress at U-32. To hear all the Winter Tales podcasts as they will sound at the shows, click here.

Snowflake

By Gretchen Tarrant
Mater Christi School, Grade 8

Swirling, twirling gently down
I hope it never hits the ground
Snowflakes represent to me
A different faith entirely
Falling from thousands of feet above
Gliding safely to my glove
It’s a glorious journey to make
But to survive it's willing to make mistakes
It has to grow just right
So it won’t get lost in the night
Somehow it still floats softly down
Earth, it seems to say, should do us proud

Editor's Note: This piece will be presented at the Winter Tales productions of Vermont Stage Company, Dec 3-7 at FlynnSpace. Reading on this podcast and during the performance is Liz Gilbert, an 8th grade actress at U-32. To hear all the Winter Tales podcasts as they will sound at the shows, click here.

Winter

By Addy Campbell
Mt. Abraham Union High School, Grade 7

Winter.
The word sounds so . . . likable.
Like snow falling softly, big flakes bringing with them a silence unlike any other.
Like smiles and rosy cheeks and big mugs of warm tea in front of a crackling fire.

Cold
This word grips you.
It's the bony, long hand that reaches out and grabs your shoulder, gripping hard, reaching deep, crushing your bones.
The word 'cold' puts ice down your throat as it gets spoken,
balling up in the pit of your stomach.

Cold is coming.
But so
is winter.

Editor's Note: This piece will be presented at the Winter Tales productions of Vermont Stage Company, Dec 3-7 at FlynnSpace. Reading on this podcast and during the performance is Liz Gilbert, an 8th grade actress at U-32.

Snow

By Haley Rae Harder
Renaissance School, Grade 5

Snow falls on my
window pane. The
soft thumping of
my brother going
downstairs fills
my ears. I sit
in bed and listen
to the birds singing
their morning song
and I wish that I
would never grow older
than I am, and that
time would stay still.

Editor's Note: This piece will be presented at the Winter Tales productions of Vermont Stage Company, Dec 3-7 at FlynnSpace. Reading on this podcast and during the performance is Liz Gilbert, an 8th grade actress at U-32. To hear all the Winter Tales podcasts as they will sound at the shows, click here.

Winter at the Ocean

By Elizabeth Lyman
Mater Christi School, Grade 3

When it comes to winter at the ocean
the days are dark
and gloomy
and the wind howls
calling for the winter holiday to start.
In the night the waves
CRASH!
like lightening cracking the sky open
and clouds blowing through the sky.
It's like the clouds are touching the ground.

Editor's Note: This piece will be presented at the Winter Tales productions of Vermont Stage Company, Dec 3-7 at FlynnSpace. Reading on this podcast and during the performance is Liz Gilbert, an 8th grade actress at U-32. To hear all the Winter Tales podcasts as they will sound at the shows, click here.

Snow Doesn't Lie . . .

By Mairead Hurley
Main Street Middle School, Grade 7

Many waning moons ago,
I drifted prompt and swift
through snow.
I wondered how and I wondered why,
What makes these crystalline flakes
survive?
Through tough long winters and windy
Skies-
I figured this, they didn't lie.
They didn't lie from time's beginning,
And they fell from Him, never have
sinning.
But why not one tiny little fib?
How come they fell and didn't sin?
Here's what I think, listen now,
everlasting hope is how.
People near and people far,
always travel on and grasp their
star.

Editor's Note: This piece will be presented at the Winter Tales productions of Vermont Stage Company, Dec 3-7 at FlynnSpace. Reading on this podcast and during the performance is Liz Gilbert, an 8th grade actress at U-32. To hear all the Winter Tales podcasts as they will sound at the shows, click here.

Winter

By Marlayna Rheaume
Benson Village School, Grade 8

Winter
Soft white flakes fall
The whipping breeze
Lashes at my face
The trees as bare
As an empty cupboard
Grass as white
As ghosts
Animals hide
In their secret homes
My house is like a cave
For security
The warmth of the fire
Hot chocolate burning the back of my mouth
Snuggling so close to each other
You can feel their hearts beating

Editor's Note: This piece will be presented at the Winter Tales productions of Vermont Stage Company, Dec 3-7 at FlynnSpace. Reading on this podcast and during the performance is Liz Gilbert, an 8th grade actress at U-32. To hear all the Winter Tales podcasts as they will sound at the shows, click here.

Winter has a Good Feeling

By Sage King
Browns River Middle School, Grade 6

Editor's Note: This piece will be presented at the Winter Tales productions of Vermont Stage Company, Dec 3-7 at FlynnSpace. Reading on this podcast and during the performance is Liz Gilbert, an 8th grade actress at U-32. To hear all the Winter Tales podcasts as they will sound at the shows, click here.

Winter

By Carolyn Woodruff
Charlotte Central School, Grade 8

You love winter.
The way the snow falls
drifting down.
You want me to
dance
with you forever
and into eternity
never stopping for air.
But it's cold out here,
it's cold.

Yes, I will dance with you.
Yes, I will let you spin me.
Yes, I will let you sweep me up,
whirl me around.
But don't you feel the cold?
Creeping under our collars,
and into our bones?
Into our hearts?
It's cold out here,
it's cold.

So I may have to leave you.
Leave you to warm myself,
from the chill of the winter.
And yes,
I may feel bitter,

Editor's Note: This piece will be presented at the Winter Tales productions of Vermont Stage Company, Dec 3-7 at FlynnSpace. Reading on this podcast and during the performance is Liz Gilbert, an 8th grade actress at U-32. To hear all the Winter Tales podcasts as they will sound at the shows, click here.

Time

By Evan Wing
Rice Memorial High School, Grade 9

On a bleak and windy moonlit night,
In mid-December, dark and cold,
I stumble into a snowy ruin,
The icy shadows making it seem not as old.

A rusty iron gate bars my path,
Piled high with winters’ chilly down,
I push it open with a creak,
Entering into a frozen town.

A cobbled street can scarcely be seen
Where the ice and snow has fallen but little.
Stone columns, cracked and caked with snow
Scatter the ground, hewn down the middle.

As I walk through this abandoned haven,
The bitter wind whipping about my face,

Editor's Note: This piece will be presented at the Winter Tales productions of Vermont Stage Company, Dec 3-7 at FlynnSpace. Reading on this podcast and during the performance is Liz Gilbert, an 8th grade actress at U-32. To hear all the Winter Tales podcasts as they will sound at the shows, click here.

Winter's Truth

By Roberta Hemmer
Mill River Union High School, Grade 11

Shards of cold pierce my chest,
whistling winds battle frigid pines jagged with ice.
Frosty mountains probe the vast darkness;
Faint stars speckle in the deep velvet above.

Winter is the only season
Where the truth is not gaudily dressed
In brilliant greens, fiery reds and oranges,
Or dispelled by distracting tendrils of vines.

Only in winter are the wounds of the earth
Laid bare for all to see,
Ugliness and despair unrestrainedly raging,
Reminding us that life is not all awe and warmth and splendor;

Editor's Note: This piece will be presented at the Winter Tales productions of Vermont Stage Company, Dec 3-7 at FlynnSpace. Reading on this podcast and during the performance is Liz Gilbert, an 8th grade actress at U-32. To hear all the Winter Tales podcasts as they will sound at the shows, click here.

Warmth Doesn't Hold

By Jessica Austin
Westford School, Grade 8

We scramble in the vastness
Of the raw and icy blackness
Shivery numb and intensely deep
Warmth doesn't hold, but gently creeps

In and out of frosty light
Velvet dusk the color of night
Stealing stars from the jewelry box
Clouds covering footsteps lost

Arctic shock startles Time
Erasing every word that rhymes
Midnight must have come too soon
For Time also erased the moon

Now, my friend, what must we do?
Moon is gone, rhyme is too
I can't believe I came here with you

We scramble in the vastness

Editor's Note: This piece will be presented at the Winter Tales productions of Vermont Stage Company, Dec 3-7 at FlynnSpace. Reading on this podcast and during the performance is Liz Gilbert, an 8th grade actress at U-32. To hear all the Winter Tales podcasts as they will sound at the shows, click here.

Skiing

By Jim Winslow
Otter Valley Union High School, Grade 8

going up the lift
skiing down the long cold slopes
oddly this is fun

Editor's Note: This piece will be presented at the Winter Tales productions of Vermont Stage Company, Dec 3-7 at FlynnSpace. Reading on this podcast and during the performance is Liz Gilbert, an 8th grade actress at U-32. To hear all the Winter Tales podcasts as they will sound at the shows, click here.

A Winter Morning

By Braeden Hughes
Westford School, Grade 8

the frosted
white tree limbs,
morning sun
slicing by,
a rainbow
of color