Snow Walk

Along the pathway
up the rising hill

biting, bitter winds whip
through the trees, 

ascend the path,
and force snowflakes
from the ground
to mingle
with those from tree
limbs and sky.

The air at the summit

is much kinder.

Evening breezes

encompass

passersby;
a friendly embrace.

Fog and mist:

an almost tangible blanket

covers the ground
lingers in the branches of trees
as leaves in summertime.

Original Paragraph:

In winter, the pathway juxtaposing the rising hill is usually the most unpleasant portion of the walk from there to here. The biting, bitter wind whips through the trees, ascends path and causes me to gasp and gulp as I struggle to catch my breath. Tiny snow pellets of sleet collide with my susceptible face and hands and I tear up. Something about traversing on that particular path causes me to unintentionally weep. Is it as a result of the pain of the ice on my eyes or the stinging air? The roughness of the hillside has a way of doing that whether I expect it to or not. Tonight is not like other winter nights. Descending the hill is warmer and much more pleasant. The air is much kinder to my eyes. The evening breeze seems to encompass me in a sort of friendly embrace. Fog and mist form a physical, almost tangible blanket that wraps me up and hides me from the outside world and the outside world from me.  A refreshing evening rain drizzles down as the sky exhales its wealth of water. The night is cool still but something is temperate about it too. Walking the path tonight, I am not choked by the wind, rather I find myself breathing in deeply the entirely of what I am experiencing. I inhale again and again, slowly. My pace slows to a stroll in the moment and I am hoping that I won’t soon return to my retreat inside. 

When considering how to go about the  two "2nd task" poems assignments, I attempted to maintain as much of the individual paragraphs' integrity and detail as possible all while trying to limit the number of words used to tell the stories. I tried to condense as much of the speech as possible and present what was important in a way that was more rhythmic and concise. As I began to work at this, I found that both paragraphs broke quite naturally into stanzas which each emphasized different elements of the stories being told.

I also shortened or lengthened certain lines based on what I felt were key ideas or details that I though should be points of emphasis and what I felt were not as much. For example, most of my stanzas in the poem about the witch have a single line with only the name, Peggy Clevenger. I did this because I thought that her name was good thing to continue referring to as the poem progressed. If I were to do a third edit I would attempt to include her name in all stanzas to add some consistency. Likewise in the poem about the blueberry harvesters I intentionally sought to place emphasis, through the construction of the lines, on any reference to berries. This technique for me was a way to enhance the natural repetition of certain words or phrases already in the paragraphs. 

Blueberry Harvesters

We approached a clearing

where thousands of blueberry bushes grew.

In the center was

the packing house--a low building

with open and windows on all sides. 

Parked outside was a school bus

marked "Farm Labor Transport."

The driver, a tall, amiable-looking

man, with bare feet

 stood beside his bus.  

He wore green trousers and a T-shirt.

The end of the working day had come.

Pickers swarmed around a pump--

old women, middle-aged men, a young girl.

A line was waiting to use 

an outhouse nearby.

Inside the packing house, 

berries 

half an inch thick were rolling 

up a portable conveyor belt and, 

eventually, into pint boxes. 

Charlie's sister packed the boxes. 

Charlie's daughter-in-law put 

cellophane over them.

Charlie's son Jim supervised the operation.

Charlie picked up a pint box

in which berries were mounded high,

and told me with disgust 

that some supermarkets

knock off these mounds of extra berries 

to put them in new boxes,

for three or four extra pints 

per twelve-box tray.

At one window, pickers were turning 

in tickets of various colors, 

and being given cash in return.

One picker, 

who appeared to be in his sixties,

tapped Charlie on the arm and

showed him a thick packet of tickets 

held together with a rubber band. 

"I found these,"

the man said. "They must have fallen 

out of your son's pocket." 

He gave the packet to Charlie

who thanked him and counted 

the tickets. Charlie said,

"These tickets are worth seventy-five dollars."

Peggy Clevenger

The Pine Barrens once had their own

particular witch. Pineys put salt

over their doors to discourage visits

from the witch of the pines,

Peggy Clevenger

It was known that she could turn herself 

into a rabbit. A dog was once seen

chasing a rabbit. The rabbit jumped

through the window of a house and there--

in the same instance, 

in the window--stood

Peggy Clevenger.

A man saw a lizard and tried to kill

it by crushing it with a rock. 

When the rock hit,

the lizard disappeared and

Peggy Clevenger

materialized on the spot

and smacked the man in the face.

Clevenger is a Hessian name.

Peggy lived in Pasedena,

another of the now vanished towns

about five miles east

of Mt. Misery.

It was said that she had 

a stocking full of gold. 

Her remains were found in the smoking

ruins of her cabin, but

there was no trace of the gold.