Saturday 1 March 2014

winter 2010....remember the snow ?

I wrote this in 2010, and have just found it again.
Thought I'd share it.


A confident sun eased itself, stretching, over the horizon
basting with melted butter
the uppermost limbs of the trees in the valley.
A pledge of restorative warmth
to the stoic waxy holly
and encumbered viridian ivy.
Improbably bright flickers of light
flashed and glanced on frigid leaf and branch.
Long fingers of shadow
the colour of robins' eggs
reached out over the pale golden hillside across the river.

Maybe today?

Then
a single dusty flake

then two....three....
a flurry......

And turning to face the stiffening breeze I saw it.

A featureless, towering, slate-grey wave
Looming over the virginal, cowering landscape
and breaking on the shoreline of scratchy bare trees,
engulfing them in a swirling insistent smoke,
turning them to a muddy watercolour blur.


There would be no thaw