Snowdrops The snowdrops have come early my father mutters to the trees. In the eaves a flash of mustard lime and the coal tit’s cap of beetle blue twists in search of information with lyric chatter, whistled song. A sun of gold floats in seaside blue, grey cloud boats sailing past the masts of conifers. Plant life’s caught mid metamorphosis, buds spiral out the branches; death-mottled leaves still cling to a former incarnation. December’s filled with wintergreens and shades of sage and laurel. The naked filigree of trees look stifled in their cardigans of ivy. The clock strikes four heralding the violet dark of twilight: The old tick tock of the old oak clock where past and future are fused in present's pulse; the crackle of the wireless and the kettle’s steam, the crunch of toast and half caught words of war and preparations for war already half dismissed among the marmalade. My father turns to my mother: The snowdrops have come early. |
