Vocabulary Soup #21: Hoarfrost

[trascendenza]

hoar·frost (hôr'frôst', -frŏst', hōr'-), noun.

frost; frozen dew that forms a white coating on a surface; ice crystals forming a white deposit (especially on objects outside). Also called white frost.

How to Play

The challenge is: write something that a) uses this word, or b) is inspired by this word (thematically, literally, whatever). It’s

Comments

[trascendenza]

veins formed like hoarfrost
just below the surface of the skin translucent
over the back of your hands.
if i look closely,
i can read your age (your wisdom) there.

[trascendenza]

on its way.

icy licks of wind
play in shallow
eddying
rivers of sound:
the crackle
of frost forming,
underneath the threshold
of hearing;
snow sighing,
heavy and about
to coalesce into
flakes;
the water slowing,
growing a hardened, glittering
surface.

breathe in and
you will taste,
crisp in your lungs:
winter is coming.

Herald

[dreams_power]

New light streaks across the horizon In veins of pink, red, orange, and the deep purple of the night. The first frost glitters as it lays on still-green blades of grass, and the dying bulbs of flowers. One is still open on the eve of winter, its delicate pink petals drooping under the foreign weight. Beside it is the great metallic frame of a swing-set, its swings swaying in the morning breeze. Later, a child would press his tongue against the cold metal for a dare, and a layer of flesh would remain glued to the pole even as the child ran inside for a hot chocolate.

The hoar-frost would disappear before noon, but that did not matter. Its presence was no more than a herald to the short days of winter.

Re: Herald

[trascendenza]

Oh, gorgeous. What a peaceful and still moment in time. ♥

[gloryofmystory]

i find it mildly disturbing that somehow i almost always seem to know these random words you bust out. how odd...

[trascendenza]

disturbing? it just means we're mutually awesome in our vocabulary proclivities!

[murklins]

We were on our way to the Ice Crystal Ball, south-east of the city. We had to take the highway through farm country; the ball is always held at a lakeside resort, in an old dance hall with a floor sprung with horsehair. In the summer, people flock to the lake for a dip in its buoyant, mineral-rich waters, but in the middle of January, we were the only ones on the road for miles around

[trascendenza]

We'd exhausted all conversation, in a dip of our relationship where it felt like we'd nothing left to say to each other except comments about groceries and the weather.
Oh, oh. I love this because it has the presence of that feeling in a relationship.

They looked heavy with it, magnificently adorned in crystal jewelry, and I suddenly understood why people might want artificial Christmas trees made of flat white plastic.
Uuuuugh, I just adore the way this is written.

I love the delicate and silent ending, so fitting with the vista of snow. Honestly, this is just gorgeous. WHY DO YOU KEEP TRYING TO TELL ME YOU ARE NOT A WRITER? OBVIOUSLY SUCH A DIRTY, DIRTY LIE.

[murklins]

I do not count this as creative writing -- it it NON-FICTION! Why do you keep posting prompts that make me want to write things? This never used to happen to me before. Does hanging out with writers flip a little switch in my brain?

I want to take out 30% of the adjectives in those four paragraphs, but I feel okay about that. This has scratched my hoarfrost itch for the winter, I think. I love it so much, and I always want to write about it when I see it. I almost made a journal entry about this car ride, but I wouldn't have written about it like this as a post -- things only come out this way as comments, usually in other people's journals. You're a good person, to let me leave these things here and then say nice things about them.

[trascendenza]

NON-FICTION IS STILL CREATIVE. You will never convince me otherwise. In fact, non-fiction takes a totally different kind of creativity, because it's capturing the mundane, the every day, the personal experiences and putting them into words. IT'S A TALENT, BITCH, YOU'RE JUST GOING TO HAVE TO ACCEPT THAT YOU'RE TALENTED.

I really don't know what hoarfrost looks like, actually. I'm not sure I've ever seen it in person. So I'm glad I can at least get the secondhand thrill via you.

Hahaha, I don't know that it's so much letting you leave things here as that I encourage people to write fiction in my journal on a weekly basis. And I'm happy you take me up on it! \o/ Part of the reason I like doing it is because I think commentspace isn't as daunting as postingspace; there are things I'll write in comments that I might not write in a post, and I think a lot of other people definitely feel the same way. I love seeing those things that might not otherwise come out.