And the poetry winner is...Clane, Just Before Christmas, Years Ago by Steve Denehan!

DarkWinter Lit is thrilled to announce that Clane, Just Before Christmas, Years Ago by Steve Denehan was chosen during blind judging as the winning entry in our 3rd Anniversary Poetry Contest by judge Hollay Ghadery! About this piece, Hollay says, "a gorgeous poem with such clear, precise language. And that ending is so beautifully evocative of our tender and brutally temporal lives." Thanks to all who entered the contest this year--it was an extremely talented field!

Congratulations also to Basilike Pappa, our second-place winner for the poem Let's Do It Slow, and our third place winner Dagne Forrest for the poem Dead Reckoning!

You can read Steve Denehan's beautiful winning entry below, and the rest of the shortlist will be featured on our special Shortlist Saturdays feature, beginning next week! Congratulations again to Steve Denehan! And a huge thank you to Hollay Ghadery for doing such an excellent job!

Clane, Just Before Christmas, Years Ago

The cone of light

rises up to the streetlamp

we stand outside of it

looking in

at falling snowflakes

our breath hanging on the crisp, still air

my daughter’s voice is a whisper

as though she is afraid

to break the spell

as though the snowflakes

might disappear

if disturbed

she says that they are lovely

just lovely

that she wishes

we could have snow more often

for a whole month

maybe, or even a year

I squeeze her mittened hand

while wondering how many more days

we might have

to look at snowflakes together

how pure, how innocent

they are, it is

how they come and keep on coming

never ending, until they do

how they burn into existence

only when they find the light