Wintering over

Here, true winter comes stalking across the moor, bristling with Siberia. We retreat to the safety of our double-glazed burrows, spend winter severed from the world, gnawing through our stores of fat and familial tolerance. Waiting out the winter, until the nights too begin to shrink, and the sun makes a wobbly reappearance over slate roofs. Then we’ll emerge, blinking in light become unfamiliar – every winter is the first winter, every spring is the first spring. Survey our neighbours, reckon the survivors.

unbroken snow –

the shadow of a stone wall

lengthening

first published: Yellow Moon – December 2003