In a hard cold time, as the future shuts down –
give me a fire, a blanket, a shelter.
But these walls only hold windows –
and a vision of dark, light, dark;
of wheel-spin days turning on a starry axis –
and the need to grab hold of the Earth.
To meet its blunt blade, be pruned back.
Cut, so what’s green can spurt out.
Like today, when it’s snow-work.
We get out there grumbling, beat hands, and shovel;
carving a path from this shelter and on –
and on to whatever comes next.
Imprinting a track on the blankness
for our boot-dumb feet –
which the snowfall will calmly erase.
Then bring on its Noh drama:
tight-masked Earth, gripped by silence.
Every tree, fence-post and blackbird’s pricked prints
etched in brief statement.
Words stripped back to mind’s breath.
My shivering skin. Our silhouettes.
This radiant nowhere.
So my hands must unglove and reach down;
must find themselves in the snow.
They burn, with a quiet resolve -
that flares, dips like a flame, and sinks down.
Gone to ground. Ahead is the white-out.
On this vanishing track, the choice is crisp:
to plunge, heart like a bucket,
and bring up a deep warmth.
It streams dark laughter past the net of the stars,
in a season that glows jewel-red.