Wednesday, 8 May 2019

Forewarning

A milk-like gleam through the window this morn
   Suggested that, night-deep, the snow had fallen;
Rising, I peered through the curtains half-drawn
   At the morning gloom like a bruise blue-swollen.

The air was frigid round my pyjama’d legs,
   The window glass wore a cataract of frost;
Outside, the garden’s winter stubs and pegs
   Were mounded with snow beneath an icy crust.

And no bird sang, no cat or fox prowled,
   Only the snowflakes jettisoned down,
A struck silence in which my breathing toiled
   Knit gloom and snow in a veil on the town.

Chastened, shivering, I went back to my bed
   Sunk in the darkness of the night-musted room;
A crow croaked once and a hiss of wind said,
   “This snow is your pall, that bed your tomb.”

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© February 2015