We dashed outside
as the sky was falling.
“Crunch...crunch...crunch! ”
chanted the snow
as our footprints
chatted to it
in a bold yellow
booted voice
and slowly a bird
wrote itself across the sky
with such careful calligraphy
& our laughter
froze
right in front of our noses.
*******
OH SNOW!
(For Scarlett)
One day
the snow
popped its head
‘round the door
asked if it could stay
a week or maybe more.
Our smiles
said “Sure! ”
In & out
out & in
we lived
in its whiteness
until my feet
as if they weren’t part of me no more
demanded to come in
dreaming now of a roaring fire.
Flames! Flames!
I stuck my feet
in front of the fire
preferring chilblains to frostbite
but the snow
kept on calling for me.
“Come out...come out...jump about
in me! ”
I put my feet in my wellies
sent them out
to tramp about
in the fields of memory
but I kept
the rest of me
inside
hugging the fire
cuddling it
as it cuddled me.
A survivor
of my first ever remembered snow
that falls forever
over & over
as it remembers
me.