Haiku About Snow and Ice

Snow haiku are mostly about what snow does to a picture. Wendy L. Schmidt sees snowflakes WOVEN INTO A WHITE QUILT, CREATES A NEW WORLD, and Angela D. Sargent sees A BLANKET OF COLD WONDER. Bedding is the natural comparison, because snow covers. Only Sargent goes on to name the other effect, SILENCE ALL AROUND, which is a fine description of what a heavy fall does to a street.

The same cover can also reveal. David Williams writes AS THE SNOW CLEARS HEADSTONES ARE UNCOVERED, and the poem ends on a surprise of its own. Lisa Sullivan reverses the order: the visit finds HIS WHITE HEADSTONE IN FRESH SNOW, where the stone and the weather are the same color. Snow hides graves and then shows them, and both poems use that fact.

Snow keeps records. Benjamin Guzovsky climbs a hill to see THE MARKS OF MY FOOTSTEPS ON THE SNOW, a poem about walking and then about looking back at it. Susan Gentry has a colder view, with drifts that BURY WHAT LIES UNDERNEATH TEMPORARILY. The last word is the one to hold on to.

Flakes you can feel

Keith Simmonds watches a violent wind put SKETCHES OF SNOWFLAKES on the window. John Delaney lets the flakes fall AND WETS MY WARM FACE, the exact and unglamorous moment when a flake melts. Stephanie De Haven finds the saddest: SNOW ON EYELASHES and frozen blue forget-me-nots that MELT TO TEARS.

Ice

Maria DePaul needs only two comparisons: a FROZEN WATERFALL with icicles LIKE STALACTITES and a snowy owl that lands to finish the cave. Ice in these poems is a stopped movement, and the interest is in what has been caught mid-air.

Snow as something to use

Jan Evans cancels the flights and lets SNOW ANGELS TAKE SHAPE, turning a travel disaster into play. Emily Strauss’s red squirrel DIGS INTO SNOW BANKS FACE FIRST, ending with NEW TUNNEL, COLD NOSE.

Questions readers ask

Where does the thaw come in?

Carolyn Martin hears it in THE SOUND OF SUN ON SNOW, and Naomi Thiers sees green shoots ringing CLUMPS OF GREYING SNOW. The melt is where snow poems start to lean toward spring.

Can snow be a happy subject?

Very much so. Kate Ladew has snow that FALLS LIKE CANDY DUSTING OUR TONGUES IN CRISP WHITE, and the poem finishes by saying the whole world feels pure. The grave and the footprint are the darker pole, and both exist in the same material.

More themes to read

WinterPeace and StillnessLoss and GriefChildren and ChildhoodRain and StormsAll themes

Last reviewed November 2026. Poems are the work of the poets credited and link to their pages in the original issues.