This is winter. This is Vermont.

Saturday, Dec. 14 at 2pm
Black Box Theatre, Main Street Landing, Burlington, VT

This is Winter
By Izzy O’Donnell
Age 13
Hinesburg, VT
 
Cold air bites at my bare fingers,
and tiny flakes of ice flutter down from the bleak, cloudy sky.
Like grains of sand in an hourglass. 
 
Time slips away in a haze of frigid winds 
and hides beneath a blanket of pale white powder. 
 
Trees sheathe themselves in coats of ice, 
and seeds borough deeper into their subterranean homes.
 
Hot chocolate greets rosy-cheeked children, 
weary from playing in piles of ice cold clouds.
 
This is winter.
 
Animals hunt. 
Crimson blood spilled on white canvas.
A stomach is filled. 
 
Frozen lakes, 
giant tanks frosted over.
Fish and frogs down below.
 
Rugged mountains, 
harsh and unforgiving, 
paint a pretty picture
if you don't live there.
 
This is winter.
 
Stretching on for months, 
feigning spring, time after time,
till it finally comes.
 
Long ago memories
of hurling snow at each other
and laughing hysterically 
in the cold Christmas weather.
 
This is winter. 
 
Cold on the best of days,
glacial on the worst, 
so cold that when you start to warm up again 
it kind of starts to hurt.
 
This is winter.
This is Vermont.
This is home.
 
This is winter.
 
You know, it snowed the day I was born. 
 
Snow White
By Oona Osborne
Age 9
Essex Junction, VT
 
I wake up --
there is snow on the ground!
There is snow falling!
So much snow,
I know I will not go to school today!
I get dressed.
I get my coat, 
and my mittens
and my hat. 
I look
at all the snow --
fresh new snow, 
perfectly white snow.
I can feel the wind 
and cold, raw snow
blowing on my face,
and sticking to my pink hat,
now with white specks.
Through my coat,
I feel the coldness on my back. 
I look at the snow again. 
I know that the snow 
will not be white 
for long --
but yellow, brown, and slushy.
But right now, 
the snow is perfect.
Right now, 
the snow is white.