The Views of Winter

Author's Note: I recently read two poems by different authors about their take on winter.  The two pieces were called "The Runaway" by Robert Frost and "Winter Poem" by Nikki Giovanni.  In this piece I will compare and contrast the two of them. I will also try to use semantic devices like similes and personification.

Winter.  A season that instantly associates with snow, a time where you have to huddle in groups just to stay warm, a thousand songs that you can only sing for so long -- that is what we see during this time of year.  All around the world, winter is seen differently through everybody's eyes.  It can be seen as a snow globe or a dreadful storm.

Nikki Giovanni pictures a winter wonderland as she stands there like a flower collecting rain.  Her winter is viewed like a fantasy full of happiness and bright, gleeful times.  She takes in the scenes as the little crystals cling to her like magnets. Giovanni's perspective of winter is much like ours.  There is not one flaw that winter possesses.

To others though, there are many flaws.  Robert Frost sees the cold, discomforting weather that drive people inside.  He sees the freezing animals left outside.  His view is almost the fear of the unknown -- what lies beneath the sheets of snow.  No one ever knows, do they?  Well, not until the blanket of ice melts away.

As for my winter, I can see both.  Those sad days with gray slush lining the sidewalk, and the times when I fall into the snow making angels in the fluffy patches.  It is beautiful, yet dreary, and calm, yet frightful.  All at the same time, I can't get enough.  Amazement.  That is what I see every single time.

Where ever you are and no matter how you say it, winter, invierno, gheimhridh, hiver, it will only be seen the way you see it. There is one season, and many ways to look at it.  It's lovable but also detestable.  That's why it's different from the others.  Winter is a painting, and a painting looks different every time.