Wednesday 7 March 2018

March Arrives

As gay as May, March arrives
            how pale the sun,
how we survive a nuclear age
with global warming’s sudden chill.
            How pale the sky,


starveling snow drifts around,
pin points of silver specks too delicate
and fine to be cheerful as the summer fireflies
heard about in books.
            No sound outside.


            Somewhere a fire burns,
burns the hearthstone out.
How we always say that sadness
will supply tomorrow:

            eyeing the sun,
stiffness of your little fingers
& the pricking of your thumbs,
yellow as an orange.



This before the snow came thick and fast. A quick steal from Shakespeare and Lermontov at the end there, by the way, good men in a crisis.