zumpoems

White Russians with White Vodka

The sky peers out over
its trailing cape, wide and pallid,
obscuring the meridian,
erasing the horizontal arguments
of Kamchatka avenues.

Don’t check your map:
it will look much the same as in summer;
it won’t show flurries,
blizzards, cyclones,
meter upon meter
of accumulated snowbanks—

You will not see the swallowed
Lada Grantas, Kia Rios,
Toyota Prados, Cherry Tiggos.

Once one could have turned on a TV
late at night
and seen snow—

now politicians,
talking heads,
social media
whitewash and whitenoise us
non-stop:

ultimately,
we will be head deep,
unable to plow out,
and even Kamchatka
will seem like
a tropical paradise.

–zumwalt (January 2026)

Based on today’s news https://asianmail.in/2026/01/19/record-breaking-snowfall-in-russia-extreme-snow-buries-towns-in-kamchatka/ and this dVerse post’s call to action: https://dversepoets.com/2026/01/20/poetics-new-year-snow/