It seeps into you this stuff,
As you hope to sleep
It off. It’s not
So much the freezing mist,
The numb winter darkness,
Nor short days that seem to steal
What little light these long months
Barely allow us. No –
It’s not the ice that blackens the roads
To a dangerous invisible sheen;
Nor the threat of snow, a slow fall
That never really appears, but sits,
A lowering white above us,
A number of signs on a map
At a narrowing of meaning-
Less lines. It’s not
The dumb-footed shifting about
Over gritty pavements, between
The dashing, slashing cars,
The quiet restaurants,
The emptied bars.
It seeps into you this stuff,
is stuff of our dreams;
The flowers, the smiles –
All our tomorrow’s
Green fields.
Andy Hunter
Photo Nick Victor
December 2020
‘Wintering in’. As you’ll see its a kind of response to where we are now.