Frozen Moments

 —Poetry by Sarah Das Gupta, Princeton, UK
—Public Domain Winter Photos Courtesy
of Joe Nolan, Stockton, CA

 

 

A WINTER QUINTET

MAGIC HOOVES      (CLARINET)

Unicorns pulled her sledge,
sliding elegantly through snow.
The Princess of the frozen North,
sat wrapped in a cloud of white.
Woven from polar bear hair,
her crown of frost shone bright
in the dark depths of the frozen night
where only twinkling stars shed light.

Her unicorns’ magical feet
left no indentations at all,
though they galloped so fleet.
Travelling towards the Pole,
to the great annual icicle ball,
they left not a sign of a hole,
over the vast snowy waste,
not even the slightest trace.

 

 

 

 

 
ST LUCY’S DAY     (CELLO)

The shortest day
of a long year.
Only St Lucy’s light
to prevail against
the liquid dark.
From the far horizon
night rolls in
like the neap tide
flooding fields and cattle,
obliterating the individual,
drowning that lone oak
in dark anonymity.
In the pastures
sheep huddle,
backs to the driving
east wind’s chill.
In the slate quarry
a whirlpool of black
covers old scars.
From the refuge
of lighted rooms,
we look blindly
into our lost world

 

 

 

 

IN THE CLOUDS     (FIRST VIOLIN)

Christmas Eve,
a scatter of snow.
Cold, very cold
as only the mountains
can be.

Darjeeling, midnight,
bells ringing,
ghosts of the Raj
dream in cold tombs
of lost Indian summers.

Kanchenjunga,
the sacred mountain
Her five peaks
the five treasures
of snow.

Salt, gold, jewels,
sacred scroll,
impenetrable armour,
guarded by
demons of old.

 

 

 

 

WINTERREISE       (SECOND VIOLIN)

Wintry sunlight touches the hollow stems,
they glitter, golden pipes of Pan,
awaiting the wind’s breath
to blow light notes across the dead garden.
Leaves whirl and dance
a mad red, yellow, brown tarantella,
a danse macabre over the frozen grass.
Drops of rain hang suspended
from black, barren branches
diamonds in the ear of a dying lover.
The cruel beauty of the rose revealed,
bare stems, jagged, broken teeth
ready to sink into softly, yielding flesh,
No summer-scented petals
to hide the maggot at the heart.

The brooding darkness of the yew
is softened by flakes of snow.
Red berries, symbol of Easter’s passion,
lie hidden in dark, spiky leaves.
Along the gutter icy daggers glint,
their brilliant iridescence
disguises the shafts stabbing downwards
into earth’s frozen heart.
Dead fronds of bracken,
skeletal fingers of autumn,
stiffen in the frosty grip
of winter
Under the stark lines of the corpse,
lies the beauty of the dying year.

 

 

 

 

A FROZEN MOMENT      (VIOLA)

Craters, seas, mountains, a recreated lunar world.
A robin hops fearlessly along a narrow icy crest—
a flash of red, a single ember, fire in ice!
In white woods I hold a ray of fading sunlight,
before it moves silently to snow-laden firs.
Hips and haws of snow hang, suspended
                                      for a frozen moment.
On the banks a secret code of footprints criss-
crosses.
Birds, rabbits, foxes, a sculptured record,
the only imprint they leave at this moment in
history.
Here is the sense of now, of a scene suspended
for alway
                                      yet soon gone!
Tonight, the world itself spins round this spot:
the dark trees sweeping along a fading horizon
mark the confines of this frozen universe.
Spears of starlight pierce the freezing snow.
Across this land, the melancholy hooting
                                     of an owl
circles and washes in the ear.
Hanging from bare hawthorn twigs, crystal tears
                                     sparkle in the setting sun.
Fences bend, buckle under the weight of snow.
In the barn the cattle, silent, still, sense the world
                                     hovering.
While from the roof, snow slides slowly in miniature
                                     avalanches.
The landscape’s scars are softly bandaged: the
abandoned
quarry, the fallen oak, muddy ruts.
All are magically made new!
The stream below the hill is spellbound,
whirlpools and ripples held tonight in an icy hand.
Haystacks loom large like white-washed cottages.
Even the farmyard’s muddy chaos
in this stillness resolves into silent order.
As moonlight floods this frozen world,
I stand transfixed, caught in this moment,
Now.

___________________

Today’s LittleNip:

What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.

—John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

___________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Sarah Das Gupta, another of our British SnakePals, for today’s fine suite of poems celebrating the frozen moments of winter, as we say good-bye to November and slide into December~ 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Bundled up with a little Darjeeling~