An Early Snow Makes No Sound

John Martino 1955 (New Jersey)



The trees are all brown and dropping leaves, their bareness too late.

The forest in Fall, a place of peace, has met a grim fate.  

An early snow makes no sound, ‘cept the din of a cracking limb

A broken landscape, a lost nest, a bird upon the wing

The weight of white snow brings a weight of dark death.

It takes a young sapling, a mother’s young brood, the weak’s last breath.


A smothering blanket that comes too soon, a beauty in disguise.

The wandering hiker is unaware, knows not how unwise      

His pause to marvel, his pause to soak in, his pause of great joy   

This early snow makes no sound, ‘cept the cries of a small boy

He’s lost his way, no trail to follow, sees danger along the way.

A paradise can be a beautiful place where no one wants to stay.

About this poem

This poem is about a snow that came too early one year before the trees had a chance to shed all of their leaves. This resulted in major damage to all the trees, their limbs cracking, breaking, and falling to the ground. The snow had piled up on their leaves creating a tremendous weight the branches could not bear. This is very rare. The animals were also not ready for this either

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Written on May 19, 2022

Submitted by jtm0107 on May 24, 2022

Modified on April 10, 2023

49 sec read
119

Quick analysis:

Scheme A A X X B B C C D D E E
Closest metre Iambic heptameter
Characters 784
Words 166
Stanzas 12
Stanza Lengths 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1

John Martino

I'm an artist at heart. I draw portraits, have tried my hand at writing a book and value creativity. more…

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Discuss the poem "An Early Snow Makes No Sound" with the community...

2 Comments
  • abielias1
    Thank you for parceling up this beautiful moment to share with the rest of us!
    LikeReply1 year ago
    • jtm0107
      - Thank you Abi - it's a lot of fun to write a poem and feels great when it is read and is liked by a poet like you.
      LikeReply1 year ago
  • Dougla$Irishman
    You paint quite a picture of an early snow ! Our seasons can be fickle, in this case turning the red leaves into brown a bit early. But the sun comes to the rescue letting winter come in slowly.
    A very entertaining poem about nature at it's best ! 
    LikeReply1 year ago

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"An Early Snow Makes No Sound" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/128107/an-early-snow-makes-no-sound>.

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