Poem from Tomorrow is the tugboat of today

 snow


her birth changed everything

to white, white covering
the patchwork of fields making a field of light
to be negotiated
with greater care than before

her letter came with the thaw
to tell of colour's returning -
the raw umber path sunk in on the way to the stile
across the new wall

the elegant lettering is all that remains of that years fall

she was so small his small hands were oversized
and fumbled
with her vests and dresses
buttons and fasteners, and the house
she built was a funnelled drift of her things that slowly settled

when she left it was to live in warmer climes
in an easy fluid form, and to dance through the night

as lightly as when she was first airborne