An Icicle Shape Poem

I'd been trying to write an icicle poem for about a week. I thought it had some good images and creative language--but I just couldn't get it right...no matter how much I worked on it. This morning, I thought I'd attempt writing a different kind of icicle poem. This time, I wrote one in the shape of an icicle. (I rarely write shape/concrete poetry.)

Here's the rough draft of my icicle shape poem--and two icicle pictures that I've taken in the past week.

Tears of snow
held suspended
in winter’s
icy grasp
grow
drop by
drop
into
crys
tal
s
p
e
a
r
s

********************

Note: Barbara Juster Esbensen wrote one of my favorite icicle poems. It was originally published in her poetry collection about the four seasons titled Cold Stars and Fireflies. Unfortunately, the book is now out of print. The poem is also included in Weather: Poems for All Seasons (An I Can Read Book), which was compiled by Lee Bennett Hopkins. Fortunately, that book is still in print.

Here's how Esbensen's icicle poem begins:

Have you ever tasted icicles

fresh from the edge
of the roof?

Have you let the sharp ice

melt

in your mouth

like cold swords?

In the poem, Esbensen also compares icicles to a glass xylophone and to a crystal harp being played by the sun.