Poems from the heart of winter

This week has been calm for me.

I wonder if it was the snow.

It’s felt such a long time coming. I’ve watched it form like porous bone before me. It brooded as an aching white hare, curling up and settling in commune with cloud.

Sometimes weather mirrors you doesn’t it, and the drumming up of snow in the sky felt like drifts of thought accumulating in my head. How would they release? As silent cry, arresting howl, flirtatious dance or the taut sheet of numb that just appears one morning, stark revelation.

I particularly love the way fresh snowfall follows the curves of branches. It’s as though they’ve been iced by teams of artful angels with little piping bags.

When I was a small girl, we had ‘book club’ at school. Maybe you too?

What a thrill it was to order one from the leaflet, wait and finally have your chosen book delivered to your classroom! What a wonderful afternoon it was when the orders came in. The vroom and scent of fluttering pages!

One of the first books I ever ordered from school book club was this. It was about a childless couple who built a snow child and she came to life. It was beautifully illustrated and brought me lots of joy.

Some of these poems may sound a tad downbeat, I don’t know, but I’ve not been feeling sad at all, just rather philosophical. Enjoy.❄️

Dead Snow

In snow, I saw a sanctuary

My fleeting vault of peace

Licenced white to violet night

A loan on heaven’s lease

Each flake, destined to die a teardrop

Puddle in my hand

Symmetry, a brief perfection

Melted promised land

Still, sparkle dwells, protected dove

Nesting in highest rafter

Your blizzard roams me as a gypsy

Cursed and blessed, there after

Flicker

Sometimes, I stare so long and hard

You appear to move

Catches me off guard

As if you’re gonna spring to life

Pull me towards you, far from here

Somewhere real

With animated faces, warm breath

Words heard, bright as gull call

Instead of muted.

A place I can’t be dulled

Turned off like a film you’re bored of

But I look again…..

And you’re back to static

Motionless

I’m left without hope

Until the next flicker

Fools

Fools embroider rags of truth

With sequins, bead and pearl

Button lips that scold or warn

Of cruelty of the world

They sprinkle life with threads of magic

Most would throw away

Certain that they’ll host

A fairy godmother someday

Each ageing blackbird on the wall

Has sonnets yet to birth

I’d rather suffocate on cloud

Than choke on bitter earth

People

People come and people go

Sometimes, they leave forever

Sacred unions turn to dust

Investment, failed endeavour

Common ground where hope once rooted

Churns to putrid marsh

Your wishing well, all but a sewer

Incoming weather, harsh

.

People come and people go

So fickle, human nature

How to keep your tenderness

When cruelty your teacher?

Wrap up warm in shawls of love

Brave storm with words and art

A shield for life does not exist

Only an open heart.