Please. Time is running out to enter the North Shore Poets’ Forum’s annual Naomi Cherkofsky contest. Just click on Contests, above, to get the details.  Deadline is March 1. I can assure you, we always have a great time at the reading in April, listening first to our winners and then proceeding to open mic. Our winners have been such a collection of wonderful poets each year. And open mic participants often become winners in subsequent years. In any event, each and every one of our participants has been wonderful, and so are their poems. Please send in a poem or two or three and join the fun!

After all, you are probably spending a good deal of time indoors, hiding out from storm after storm, taking well-deserved rest from shoveling walks and driveways, clearing off cars and even roofs. So, put on a pot of tea, or maybe cook up some hot chocolate, pull out your pen and paper and create!

Perhaps this winter, with storm begetting storm, it seems, will become a topic for your creativity. Or, maybe you’ll choose sunnier topics while waiting out what might be a winter for the record books. In any case, it will be one to remember.

I must say, one of the nice parts of the winter for me has been, unbelievable as it may seem, the ride to work. I happen to take the scenic route to Lowell, where I have a new job, a route that takes me through Topsfield, Boxford, North Andover, Andover and Tyngsboro. The roads are graced with these snow draped trees. God, they are so gorgeous, with snow snuggling in the crooks of their arms and nestling comfortably in the laps formed by their main branches. The white highlights the limbs. It highlights broken things, too – large branches cracked and waiting for a big wind to toss them to the ground. The trees speak of hardship and death, for sure. But, they are so old, so full of grace and forbearance, they speak of everlasting things, they speak of eternity. I love my drive. Maybe I’ll try to write a little poem about it.

Best wishes to you all. Keep writing, and send in your poems!