SNOWFALL IN SURREY
By Bart Wolffe
Periodically stepping outdoors,
(Well, to the edge of the patio through the glass door
Hovering)
To light up another home-roll,
Suck in the silence of the snowfall
And count the inches creeping upward
In their white ascension.
No buses pass by. The trains don’t run.
The road devoid of noise,
Not even birds seem to sing
A song to disturb the hush.
My toes are cold in their slippers,
Socks have holes.
I sit. Time doesn’t tick,
It hovers like a snowflake
Before settling into the white approaching night.
The garden birch is star-studded. A crystal chandelier upended.
Frost-flaked with filigree and tracery, the tender twigs
In their wintering dormancy decorated with delight.
The silversmith has worked his trade well
And hammered out against the frost a pale web across the sky.
Icing from above, all garden blooms its winter wedding bells
Mutely, deaf an untold voiceless sigh.
The eye spies only one, complete whitewashed word of it.
A world of frozen milk, a sherbet of sugar dust,
A sure sign of the anaesthetist doing his work
Numbing the world’s new canvas
Pending Spring’s scalpel to cut the ice
And paint the green blood upon
The unbandaged skin of earth once more.
In the morning, the foxes will have left their imprints,
A printed pattern crossing over the frozen waste.
I blow white clouds once more by the patio door
Before I bid goodnight.
[Click this link to get to Bart's Lulu shop front, and to a book of his which can be downloaded for free.]
