A Celebration of Winter

 

                              Paper Rooks

 

Give me a winter’s day, all knuckle-

bare, with nothing left to lose;

a day you couldn’t choose in summer

when froth lies on the daydream.

But give me a winter’s day: the lean

picked bones of trees gaunt on the

purple air, a sigh of wood smoke

drifting on the breeze.  These are my

thin, spare pleasures, my treasures

rare - all fair and square my own.

Not summer’s careless bounty do I

swear by, but these certain measures:

the clean, warm snuffle-breath

of cows, soft by the flung farm sheds,

the sparrows there at dawn to share

my breakfast bread.  This is my wealth

when life pares to the quick: a half-

fledged, squeamish day, with sifting rain

on fields all blanched and slick, a cold

low sky uncertain when to lift,

the late grey dawn a sudden, unexpected

gift of pooling gold peeling back the east;

this heartbeat rush of wind-torn paper

rooks across bleak skies, the emptiness

that hurts the wide horizon of my eyes,

a feast of snowdrops caught beneath

                        the hedge – give me a winter’s day

LF