The hills exulting in their snowy scarves,
cold summits razoring the sky,
the highest, almost-scarp concavities,
lower furred by coiffures of trees and
on down divided by stone walls -
snow attempting their camouflage
but for a thin line of black
cladding
slid from sides, though icy coping
has refrozen in the middle of melt now -
and the path down from road to brook
similarly an ice slide, so hold
the iron rail and tread on gravel,
(not on water like a slippery stone)
down to the wooden bridge and the little
weir where the torrent is trying to freeze:
a metal pole angling up is a
white ice-pop dribbled with icicles;
a large rock sits on the edge,
a black snail in an ice shell.
Up the road the hill reverberates;
gale resonates windbreak trees,
laryngeal, primal, stirring, stirred,
the message heard, no need of word.
The sheep are nowhere to be seen today;
stripes and humps of snow line stream.
February wrapped in its true colours,
a bleaker flag than January mustered,
magnificence to take your life away,
not just breath.
Pull over
on the way back; jump out;
see the extent of the glacial valley,
the divide that fed the tall ice in,
scoured out and hard as iron
now, and all the glory of the shouldered
summits an inimical panorama.
.....................