'Oh
They have killed a white bird up there on her nest,
The down is fluttering from her breast!' - Edward Thomas
........
Snow feathers parachute.
Straight down they drop,
measured, unhurried, perhaps
a slight showy delight
in landing, a twist, an eddy
by this kitchen window, and
under the shed eaves.
Innocently grey blank,
the sky that lines them
in its gliding fuselage;
unseen their journey falling
to this or that garden
in the grey dusk.
Corpuscular
rhythm as much behind
the eyes as beheld, vanishing
on wet brick sheen.
Feathers diminish, liquidize,
almost sleet;
but more than
in the mind's recognition,
thicken, re-plume until
their presence sings some myth:-
Christmas carding garden
resonating some
New Year's Epiphany,
crib adjacent to fatality;
no enemy but feather
on upturned face in alley.
.....................
The title comes from A Stir of Echoes - little clairvoyant boy foresees some disaster elliptically 'because of the feathers'. You have to see the film to know what eventuates.
The pic is Bruegel's 'The Adoration of the Kings in the snow.'
