Synkroniciti is delighted to welcome back Canadian poet Angela Waldie, winner of our Recovery poetry contest, with two striking works exploring nature and vulnerability in the snowy landscapes of winter.
Her poem “Grey Ghosts of Winter,” subtitled Rangifer tarandus caribou (Woodland Caribou), turns its gaze toward an endangered subspecies whose survival is threatened by human carelessness.
“We’ve placed you/ taxonomically/ in the deer family/ but abandoned you/ to the family of forgotten things—/ phonographs and misplaced gloves.// Did you ask too much?// The wisdom of unbroken places/ where you could live your lives beyond us.”
Angela exposes the callous disregard humans have shown toward fragile ecosystems that have endured for countless generations. Habitat loss and the accelerating effects of climate change leave the caribou increasingly vulnerable. Angela’s poem is both lament and plea for the preservation of life on the brink.
In “Visible Ghosts,” one of our Expectations poetry contest finalists, she turns to the snowshoe hare and other creatures whose reliance on seasonal camouflage is breaking down as winters shorten. Their once‑protective whiteness becomes a liability, revealing them to predators.
“Threatened now for knowing/ how to brave the coldest hours,/ not migrating, not hibernating—/ hiding still against the snow.// Now they glow,/ like winter’s lost shadow/ trapped within a mottled spring,/ cells out of sync adaptation banished”
Angela’s empathy for these winter beings shines through her perceptive imagery and bold advocacy. She invites us to witness the unraveling of natural systems and to confront the consequences of human behavior that has reshaped the world. The expectations written into these animals, ancient, instinctive, and beyond conscious control, now lead them toward danger rather than safety, toward exposure rather than protection. There is so little time.
Read Angela’s stirring poetry that calls us to awareness and action in Synkroniciti’s Expectations, Vol. 8, No. 2, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/
Angela Waldie is a writer, editor, and university instructor, living in Treaty 7 Territory, in Calgary, Alberta. As she grew up in Creston, BC, her poetry often crosses and recrosses the Continental Divide. Her first poetry collection, A Single Syllable of Wild, was published by Frontenac House in April 2026. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Prairie Fire, Grain, Event, The Goose, Feral, The New Quarterly, Freefall, Synkroniciti, The Antigonish Review, The Willows Wept Review, and various anthologies.