Snow and Carol Ann Duffy

Howth Head, Dublin (photo by Cameron Lee)

Sydney is like pea soup, the humidity thick enough to cut with a spoon. At this time of year I always think of snow and the  fabulous stillness of it, the way it softens the landscape and ugly statues, it literally paints the world new, in white, then grey as it melts. Perhaps I am just feeling my homing instincts to the other side of the planet, after tasting Christmas pudding that is like the glow of love in the belly.


Carol Ann Duffy says it better than me.

Snow by Carol Ann Duffy

Then all the dead opened their cold palms
and released the snow; slow, slant, silent,
a huge unsaying, it fell, torn language; settled,
the world to be locked, local; unseen,
fervent earthbound bees around a queen.
The river grimaced and was ice.

Go nowhere-
thought the dead, using the snow-
but where you are, offering the flower of your breath
to the white garden, or seeds to birds
from your living hand. You cannot leave.
Tighter and tighter, the beautiful snow
holds the land in its fierce embrace.
It is like death, but it is not death; lovelier.
Cold, inconvenienced, late, what will you do now
with the gift of your left life?