Under Snow

2003

How long before
snow falls
for you?

Not the brittle sprinkling
which passes now
for snow
but a deep
dream-blanket

bending boughs into laden arcs,
sinking fences and hedges under drifts,
freezing the ponds into circus rinks,
where water-fowl unwittingly clown,
muffling your familiar world
(even the rumble of London’s traffic
is dampened)
in soft,
silent
forms.

Nothing so faded,
jaded,
worn
but is rendered wonderful
under snow.

Poems for Artemis