‘Is this how I must learn
Love?
By Separation?
By boughs lagged
With snow.
And dumb footsteps
On the ice?
Is this how I must learn feeling?
With words?
The winter speculation
Child ghost of
First light
Which like dim coals
Tell first of warmth
And later
Of frost
And silence.
The slight embered
Voice of isolation.
Malcolm Paul
Picture Nick Victor
It’s the 2nd summery day of the year & I’m reading a poem called “winter” by Malcolm Paul from his collection Soutine’s Meat, admiring some nice phrases: “boughs lagged with snow,” “dumb footsteps on ice,” “slight embered voice of isolation.”
Bart Plantenga. Author.
.