Rhyming on skis

Skiing is a mode of living:
Life is now, an affirmation,
time in motion and elation.
Carpe diem ! Life is skiing.

Skiing is a state of Being,
breathing, feeling, freezing, seeing,
hope to be by all three Graces kissed,
mercurial both in sunshine and in blanket mist.

White out is when contours vanish under steel-grey skies
and tricky slopes surprise us with surprise:
The piste looks blue -- it's very black --
seems flat, drops shaply down -- you can't go back!

Skiing is a form of movement therapy -- away
from doing and producing, letting play
be raison d'être, jousting like once valiant Ivanhoe,
inventing brave full-body tournaments in snow.

 

How often office work induces mild misanthropy,
an overdose of people, politics, diplomacy ! ...
the best escape is mountain stillness, empty slopes,
the muted dialogue with long abandoned hopes.

In life and ski our rule of thumb
should be the Delphian metron ariston!
There's time for everything -- for skiing slow or fast
for jumping, falling, laughing to the last!

 

According to the hoary Oracle at Delphi --
next to precipices skiers should not selfie.
Better keep those basic rules of courtesy:
Block not the traffic, ski and let the others ski. 

 

 

 

Skiing is a modus to recalibrate reality.
A mobile phone on slopes? What sheer antinomy!
We ski to live a different hic et nunc and free
our latent self, articulate our fantasy.

Mountains itch with skiers striving
strenuously for citius, altius, fortius --
not pausing for the vast, majestic views,
just racing on -- and not arriving....

Freedom is our language, JOY the default setting --
free of avalanches, free of icy moguls fretting!
Sunshine bathes us, feather white clouds beckon.
Optimism is the vital force all skiers reckon.

Alalin, Dufour, Mont Blanc and Matterhorn...
each mountain has its secrets for the newly born
on skis or boards. What mysteries they hide!
What magic they reveal to us in gracious pride!

Reckless in vitality, forgetting to relax --
we jump, we fall, we rise with youthful hopes,
in fast and furious dance we take the slopes,
we laugh and race the blues, the reds, the blacks!

We laugh and ski and merry be
and merry be, Oh! how we ski!
We laugh and sing and merry ski
those minefield moguls wild and free.

So wild and free, hors piste we dare,
while magic lies upon the conifers,
the winds composing their own verse,
and sundust glistening in air.

Through speed we try to take possession of the hills,
invading wintry landscapes with bold martial skills,
aggressively as if to conquer timeless time
and plant our fiery flag on nature's boundless prime.

 

O happy Dionysian metaphor:
white oceans undulating to a distant shore,
full body bath in speed inebriation
narcissistic and mercurial in expression.

"This slope is mine" -- notorious skiers' syndrome, sign
of wanton solipsism on cloud nine.
What joy when skis are newly sharpened, freshly waxed,
we feel our racing mood awaken, legs are sorely taxed.

When skiing hormones flood our happy veins,
oblivious of tomorrow's muscle pains,
we dash through faery landscapes, trees bewitched,
it tingles funny in our limbs -- with snow we're hitched!

We orchestrate rash music as we rush downhill
and carve our loves on snow, our fantasies fulfill.
In rhythmic headlong exhibitionism
we express our individualism.

Singing down the slopes enhances joy.
Vienna waltzes are the best to bounce and buoy,
we bubble with the Kaiser waltz in alpine wise,
Blue Danube, Merry Widow, even Edelweiss!

Oh what frustration when the chosen piste is barred!
Sweet jubilation when again it opens -- be it hard
or velvety. Forget, my friend, to lunch or rest.
Ski on, ski on, for lunchtime skiing is the best.

These kids learn faster than adults and ache to race
in forest runs, do fancy jumps with hurried grace,
ignoring dangers, scarcely knowing any fear
and then they cut before us in the line with shameless cheer.

We senior skiers know the risks, anticipate
those eager boarders always tempting fate,
we take no wine on ski-slopes, drink Ovomaltine
indulge in power pauses, marshal our adrenaline.

Boarders need good guardian angels, patron saints,
like Don Quijote charging windmills recklessly,
like brazen mountain goats defying gravity
when jumping cliffs with no regrets and no restraints.

Like young Icarus skiers soar in ecstasy,
as avalanches sweeping down in anarchy.
For style I laud instead the dancing telemark
who swing in rhythm, turning skiing into Art.

Sweet memories of skiing lessons … snowplow
all the way, displaying total lack of know-how,
falling on the greens, skiing into snowdrifts,
fretting risky T-bars, taking safer chairlifts.

 

Snowparks fascinate the kids and kids at heart,
long roller-coaster runs, satin white, state of the art,
big hands to punch and horns to ring when racing past...
Just watch these jovial gymnasts rush and tumble feline-fast!

 

Snow attracts all weight groups -- skinny folk to feisty fat,
draws rivals notwithstanding their political what's what,
Slopes invite all generations to the skiing sport
from tiny tots and daring youth to us - the seasoned senior sort.

 

There was a time when monoski was coup de coeur
and proper fashion on the slopes was de rigueur.
Today the mini-ski is popular with adolescents and adults,
who leap like limber cougars -- knowing all the nuts and bolts.

New adepts brought skibobbing to the slopes, a dangerous invention,
fast at 120m per hour scooting giant slaloms in declension,
feels like dry jet skiing, dizzying as alpine vertigo...
how many more next season will be racing in the snow?

As youngsters we adored to slalom -- jubilant as racing
arrows, headlong down the satin pistes, and chasing
mutually, while etching on the powder slopes our trace,
Alhambran arabesques of alpine lace.

On canvas three-dimensional they boldly sign,
but soon they wipe each other’s traces line on line.
They write emotions like beach frolickers on sand,
ephemeral, erased by radiant Phoebus’ hand.

To each his own -- a sporty chacun à son goût!
On monoskis or boards, on sleds and velos too,
we listen to our inner Muse when jumping free
and feather-fall on airy pillows sensuously.

 

The latest trend: the fearless parapent with skis.
From lofty slopes they slide airborne in Genesis.
Above the pristine snows they float in silent flight,
they glide in solitary, pantheistic rite.

When snow and ice encrust the chairlift frame,
and chunks drop on your head -- Oh what a shame!--
hard helmets help and laughter soothes your cares,
recalling being hit by friendly snowballs unawares.

Bottom-lifts and T-bars may be ecological,
but when they stop midway the fright is pathological,
for sliding down steep narrow tracks is dangerous,
and heavy snows next to the teleskis are treacherous.

Some teleskis may give you quite a jolt,
and if you fall, it's no one's fault.
Dismounting from a T-bar takes some skill--
alone is safer, though it dulls the thrill.

 

Moutain music: swishing sounds of skis and boards on snow,
winds sweeping over slopes: a murmuring adagio...
babbling brooks beside the pistes... How water speaks!
Above a solemn silence reigns on solitary peaks.

Beware though: winter witches practice frosty sorceries!
In Belalp witches squeal when riding brooms on magic skis,
they conjure mountain spirits, spraying wildly white on white,
they frolic casting spells upon the crests in hedonistic flight.

Kaleidoscope of uncontrolled emotion,
carnival of masks and colourful commotion,
fine hyperbole and metaphor of liberty,
for skiing is a festival of anonymity.

Like mardi-gras in Rio, multicoloured helmets, caps and hoods,
a masquerade of flashy scarfs and rainbow goggles -- festive moods...
Rejoice, for skiing opens up in us a fourth dimension,
spacial time, eternal space, a promise of redemption!

Once because of Covid many stations closed the slopes.
Reopened now with safety rules and pious hopes,
they welcome sportsmen wearing masks from near and far.
How fast we have adapted, --lucky skiers that we are!

 

Skiing is a genial therapy against the Covid blues.
We crave the sun, the pristine snows, the mountain views!
Behind our sporty masks we smile in bold resistance,
conscious of the dangers, keeping vital distance.

 

Although ski-restaurants are closed, at least there’s take away.
We pause in open air to drink Ovomaltine mid-day,
remove our masks -- perhaps prized souvenirs someday,
collectibles for brave survivors of this tragic Covid play.

In Flaine fast rhyming pistes Mephisto and red Faust
get skiers' literary libido aroused.
Notoriously the bard loved mountains far and near,
although no sign in Flaine attests: "Goethe was here".

Behold: the broken rock asserts itself on high,
attaching to the blueness of the winter sky.
Black cliffs pierce through the untouched snow--
and higher glides the elegant jackdaw.

Snow blankets sparkle three dimensional,
when sunrays touch the crystals, make them shine.
Alive, they spring, they scintillate ephemeral,
remind us that each moment is divine.

The virgin snow seems sugar sweet,
like icing shaped by colder winds
that whirl at night until they meet--
in twisting dance around the peaks.

We skiers know the paradoxes of the glacial sun,
hands warm in muffs, hearts joined in amorous frisson.
From valleys dim we pierce through stratus to the height,
on radiant summits we breathe life, breathe light.

Glacier skiing, glacier glories, glacier charms:
the price is often pushing, pushing with your arms,
not quite cross-country, heavy on the knees,
yet genial for the soul, no matter if we freeze!

 

 

Corrugated, rugged, ragged glacier ice,
Luminescent turquoise over granite, over gneiss,
Green-blue mountain crystal under alpine rays,
Translucent, abstract art that melts in glossy glaze.

 

There blue-green glaciers silently regress,
their rigid walls disguising danger
in sheer beauty -- broken crevasses
and crystal castles dazzling every skier.

Skiing on the vast Feegletscher -- quickly out of breath.
Four thousand meter summits rising all around.
Obey we must the glacier rules on life and death,
Forgo hors piste today -- for here safe slopes abound.

Russian roulette skiing can be fun,
dare-devil jumps from cliffs – Oops! you’re gone,
descending precipices, ravines, chancy va-banque game,
casino skiing, circus show for transient fame.

Rescue dogs and hounds on sleds provide hilarious lols:
A sight for weary eyes, when canines jump to catch snowballs
high in the air, and sometimes chase their masters as they ski,
tongues hanging and tails wagging, proving thus their loyalty. 

 

Enticing ice builds blocks of rugged ruins:
Glaciers -- witnesses of generations.
Perspiring mountains in the flaming ice
wield edges sharp as swords of paradise.

Brown totem logs test glaciers' changing moods,
capricious as they move through frosty neighbourhoods.
In solitary radiance glaciers induce Zen
in white and blue as Eden once again.

Ahead we see the Dom, Lenzspitze, Täschhorn, Nadelhorn:
We were for glorious glaciers and for summits born.
The Gletscher Rot at Saas-Grund glides as smooth as satin.
Altius scandis, amplius incidas (1)-- we love this glacier Latin!

 

Skiing is communion with creation,
with a host of wild terrestial treasures.
Skiing offers rapid sensual pleasures,
deeper yet a spiritual regeneration.

Skiing is a cosmic soul epiphany,
a vigorous, dynamic fantasy,
a vital self-libation for creation,
Thanksgiving for each revelation.

Skiing is a school that unites nations
cultures, languages and generations.
Youngsters, seniors and all in-between
are drawn by nature's bounty, nature's sheen.

Why not proclaim a human right to ski
as corollary of the right to be, be fast and free,
combining summit peace and downhill solidarity
with trainers, guides, attendants of the ski society.

We skiers hanker for infinity
when chasing ever faster after destiny!
Past icicles, trees draped in ermine white we fly,
a tip toe star smiles down on us with winking eye.

 

The liturgy of snow knows many holy places;
sanctifies Sapporo, Sochi, Whistler -- all Olympian races:
Kitzbühl sings the Kyrie, Courchevel the Credo, Gstaad the Gloria,
Saas the Sanctus, Banf the Benedictus -- skiing in euphoria!

 

Winter flashbacks – sparkling icicles on trees --
flashbacks to illustrious holidays on skis.
How young we were and sinewy! ... Fast-forward to today:
The icicles still glitter -- we put gritty senior vigor on display.

Superb and heartening beginning of the skiing season. Glory be!
Awakening of snow-bound instincts wondrously!
We test our muscles, knees and rhythm as we downhill dance
upon the statin slopes with cheery nonchalance.

Pre-Christmas skiing, feeling young and lean--
our hearts and limbs rush with adrenaline,
our old impulses suddenly alive in alpine merriment
with appetite for empty slopes and white Advent.

How luscious: virgin ski pistes, freshly raked and combed,
untouched as yet by morning skiers, nor by hikers roamed.
We ski in symbiosis with the mountain spirits,
singing winter songs to skiing lyrics.

Delicious too: a night descent in dazzling lantern lights,
with blazing flares as once in atavistic pagan rites!
Emotions are aflame with Goethe-Herder's Sturm und Drang,
dark-light contenders join in skiing yin and yang.

Pistes prepared but newly covered with fresh powder,
Soundless gliding over talcum, soothing, sensuous baby powder.
Pachamama knows we need good snow this season
Hence she trims the trees and us with frosty reason.

 

O wondrous winter skiing, symbiotic sun and cold!
O Janus joys of yin and yang for young and old!
O holy Easter skiing -- still a chance for snowy thrills!
Pure blessings -- urbi atque orbis -- as God wills!

 

Winter clouds shape sculpture over skiers' sky,
angelic forms that waft and sanctify,
ephemeral like garlands, white camelias,
winter cirrus, strains of maiden hair, bohemian glass.

Snow faeries fill the air with fleeting ice,
the crystal spray enchanting skiers' eyes.
A myriad diamonds glitter on the trail.
Rejoice! for skiing is a faery tale.

On frigid mornings ice-dust dances in the air
on sun-drenched days light sparkles everywhere --
with gusting winds come shivers, frosty woes
at minus fifteen frozen fingers, frozen toes.

When pristine snowflakes fall on us like angel tears,
we witness art for art, a million busy years
of cutting crystals, etching Karlsbad glass on ice;
unique each flake, divine in symmetry and size.

We feel the twinkling frozen sprinkle, magic  glare
of crackling cold that shines in jewell-studded air
when blowing over slopes as fairy glitter glory,
sparkling as champagne -- our tipsy New Year’s story.

Brilliant gems encrusted on the pistes and floating in the air,
a frosty Providence today has lavished luxury so rare
with crinkling crystals under skis and scintillating oxigen,
so volatile and fragile as fine Delft-blue porcelaine.

Mountains exercise a subtle jurisdiction
over timid toddlers, keener teens – with benediction
from us seasoned mountaineers, who come up, slow down,
snow and ice deploying their own logic until meltdown.

Skiing is a form of sublimation,
listening to mountains' incantation,
sensing all the symbolism of each peak:
Awesome is the spirit that we seek.

We love to ski on Valentines -- that day of bliss.
We kiss and ski, we ski and kiss -- it's very Swiss!
Mid-season is prime time for lovers' snow.
We glory in fresh snow and on each other's glow!

Lazy day of mid-week skiing, day of honest leisure,
sitting on the terrace, watching others ski.
Empty pistes will always heighten pleasure,
tempt us to observe the pretty girls, be carefree

 

Mountain weather, crackling fickle weather!
Heavy snow at times -- or light as a goose feather,
brown when thawing, orange when Sahara sands
blow over from Mediterranean far-off lands.

Late spring skiing, canine skiing, satisfies
alone addicted skiers with heroic thighs,
who navigate through heavy slush and greening shoots
in melting snow, avoiding rocks and naked roots.

 

 

Second nature – skiing is such sweet addiction,
cherished memories of arduous racing – better yet than fiction!
Never get enough of satin slopes. . . But soon, we know,
wild aster, gentian and Edelweiss replace the snow.

Summer skiing, glacier skiing, sun-burn skiing,
sporting t-shirts or bikinis -- well-worth seeing!
Empty slopes and sunlight granting prolongation,
glorious, glorious celebration of creation!

Red snowplows rumble after hours, packing white on white,
their beacon eyes illuminating empty slopes at night,
preparing well-groomed, sensuous boulevards aloft,
where skiers slide as if on flying carpets silken soft.

 

What does a skier think most of the day?
"Out of my way!" "Out of my bloody way!"
what does a skier want for après-ski ?
Fendant, fondue, viande sechée, rösti !

All canons of the world should henceforth be snow canons,
peaceful, bountiful, refreshing shower-canons,
spreading fairy airtificial snow, instead of lethal fire,
preparing pistes for safety, thus to satisfy our heart's desire.

When skiing white on white our legs become our eyes.
They sense the ground, the moguls and the ice,
conduct ecography, relay topography,
our insticts guide us instantly.

New season: pistes prepared but muscles unprepared.
A hint of apprehension -- spirits unimpaired.
First skiing day at seventy plus five!
Fresh mountain air, bright sun, blue skies. I am alive !

We chase our restless shadows on the snow,
bold alter egos, gallant ghosts we scarcely know.
Blind skiers clad in yellow bravely cast their shadows too
on canvases of white, with monitors who obstacles eschew.

Snow canons silver spray scraped pistes and scraping skiers,
tempting youngsters to intrepid, acrobatic change of gears.
Snowmobiles and helicopters rush to rescue, whisk
the injured to repair, for fun comes always with a risk!

Rhyming on the teleski is safe and can be fun,
composing under snowflakes or capricious sun.
Beware, though: rhyming on steep slopes is tempting fate,
for poetry on skis may legs and shoulders break.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Belalp Tunnel slope belongs to every skier's musts.
Alas, it's closed because of risk of avalanche and gusts.
Now Hülsen 2 invites us to a panoramic run
with views over the Matterhorn that will not be outdone.

Freeriding in Belalp is quite a modern Odyssey,
Freenavigating Scylla and Charybdis -- rhapsody
in snow, ignoring Circe's warnings -- confident
that skill plus courage will avert an accident.

Yet global warming challenges UNESCO heritage.
Will snow-white peaks soon turn to pasturage?
No panic yet, for climate cycles have well-ordered reasons.
Skiers shall not be deprived of Chione's seasons.

Swiss snowcapped mounains are UNESCO sites:
Tthe Jugfrau/Aletsch and Sardona heights
invite to ski resorts that open to tectonic sights,
where alpinists climb crests and gliders swing from kites.

UNESCO honours customs as intangible world heritage:
the art of alpinism, making lofty peaks heremitage,
the algebra for managing, predicting avalanches...
also ski-schools and their coaches merit laurel branches.

We know that there is never zero risk of avalanche,
and even on groomed slopes no skier has carte blanche,
but some with digital transceivers venture on the hillsides.
Belalp monitors while helicopters trigger controlled slides.

 

Archaic China knew ten thousand yeas ago
how to advance in snow, as old rupestral paintings show.
Back seven thousand years in Russia ski was practised too,
as acheologists reveal, ahead of Scandinavia's wooden shoe.

Perhaps Neanderthaler boys built boards to glide
to neighbouring Cro-magnon girls and venture wide
in search of food and happiness. Perhaps they fashioned
snowmen, snowballs -- just for fun -- like us impassioned.

But who invented downhill skiing as a sport?
Swiss, Austrians and Norwegians justifiably purport.
Hans Imseng, Saas-Fee village priest, Matthias Zdarsky in Mariazell
and Sondre Nordheim from far Morgedal in Telemark as well.

Now we gaze upon the rabbit's trace,
which noonday heat will soon erase.
Its imprints seem so blue upon the white --
its daily search for food in winter's plight.

On higher slopes we skiers may surprise the bock,
red deer, discrete chamois, when jumping rock to rock.
With us they share their mountain habitat
-- and keep their distance as survival caveat.

 

Some lower pistes run past brown sheds where sheep
may shiver when they see young skiers leap.
In springtime sheep graze where the pastures are snow-free
and primaveras grow between the rock debris.

Behold a solitary cross upon a silent promontory.
Mindful skiers pause to praise the glory.
Skiing thus becomes an active prayer,
every turn a sanctus by an organ player.

Blest are we the skiers, blest in plenitude
on virtuous runs and prodigal Beatitude.
Blest are we who listen to the Alpine Angelus of praise,
and if we sometimes sin against the rules, we still get grace.

At times a snowcapped chapel, intimate and quaint
rings bells in honour of St. Bernard, patron saint
of skiers, who in gratitude for safety offer one ex-voto:
"Ski for life". That is the skiers' cheerful motto !

"Good King Wenceslas looked out -- on the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even..." (2)
Bernard also blessed the Alps: "Tempus adest floridum, surgunt namque flores...
hoped for spring: "vernales mox; in omnibus immutantur mores." (3)

Below in valley villages the alpine cows
find shelter, while their bells with chapel bells
resound. There too the pious peasant dwells,
still one with nature through primeval vows.

 

Behold the alpine chapels with their spires,
snowbound chalets with their pinewood fires.
Tonight we drink vin chaud and can relax,
but now we race the blues, the reds the blacks!

How glorious whizzing down an empty slope!
On pristine snows we trace our horoscope,
connive, contrive, nosedive, we strive in overdrive.
There's nothing like this sport to make you feel alive!

Race on! For skiing is a state of Being:
Living now in joyful affirmation,
taking time and space in exultation.
Homo ludens (4): Sport is Being!

 

Epilogue

 

Te Deum laudamus, God of splendour, God of snow,
of mountain peaks, primordial slopes and human awe!
To age on skis to five and seventy was not in vain,
some stations honour seniors with free skiing, thus in Flaine!

 

The world is crazy, skiing makes much better sense
We want to conjugate life’s slopes in every tense
forget the a prioris of political doxology
the idiocy of phony ideology.

 

Disability means not the end of sports activity
Humanity finds ways to help our kind to cope.
The slopes are open to us all in luminous festivity,
Mentelity and paralympic games give hope.  (5)

 

 

 

 

 

________

(1) The higher you climb, the farther you fall.

(2) Christmas hymn, lyrics by John Mason Neale, 1853, set to music
to the medieval tune "Tempus adest floridum" ("The time is near for flowering")

(3) poem 142 in the collection Carmina burana, XIth century

(4) man at play

(5) Foundation Babian Mentel

© Alfred de Zayas, 2024. I always ski with a small notebook and a pencil (ballpoints tend to freeze).