John Stuart-Murray

Winterludes
Poem

Scottish Book Trust (Garden Area)

John Stuart-Murray is a poet and Head of Landscape Architecture at Edinburgh College of Art.

 

Winterludes

Stalactites of ice
drip long and thin by noon.
Nothing meets the melt.

Old gaits give way.
The snow’s too hard for prints.
Who now can walk the walk?

The old man leans back.
An unknown beckons,
Earth shifts on its axis.

Angles become curves.
Layers of time pile up in drifts.
Snow smothers white noise.

Light floods from the door.
Sparks escape into the dark.
How long do stars burn?

The host makes welcome.
A guest ducks the lintel.
What waxes, will wane.     

 

 

 

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