Christmas
White-sound
of snow;
a huge yawn of the sky-mouth
that shouts wind and ice
like knife-slice
and hammer-blow:
winter warms for Christmas
in its cauldron of cold.
A fox nudges snowflakes
with his feather-soft caress of nose.
He dream-drinks each
to the icicle sharpness of both eyes
and enters invisibly
this white-world
in a fire of red fur-glow.
All melts.
All is one.
All merges in the
stall of this moment. Snow again
falls and
falls and
falls.
There is a man, iron-strong,
walking in this moment.
His snow-crow hair is like a scarf
around head and neck,
black-white/white-black,
and he moves in the wind-hover
like a ghost.
When he speaks the hills tremble.
"This is Christmas," he intones
in an earth-tremor voice,
holding in his hand the scent of fox
like a glove: fur-warm, snow-soft,
shrouding bones.
White-sound
of snow
and this man in its cauldron of cold.
Fox is still watching,
indelible paws never growing old.
- 1998 -
[Written in memory of Ted Hughes who died in this year]
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