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.
The final photo here is a view from my son’s bedroom this evening. How blessed we are to have beautiful views on either side of the house.
Beautiful as always. Fools put me in mind of Oscar Wilde. Thank you for the snow-like purity you bring us.