Winter 


A Realist Vision of Winter

If winter has her compensations,
they might be found in the rosy cheek
of the woman waiting at the station’s
tentative platform in the week;

in a layer of frost crisp underfoot;
in the breath making tortuous, iron
statues in the emaciated light;
in the whole gulp of white sun

going blind behind a thorny tree,
splintering into a thousand shards
like a coruscation of divinity;
in staying in and playing cards

beside a roaring sitting room fire;
in chimney smoke against a canvas-sky;
in a little sprinkling of icing sugar
on the tops of fells as we drive by…

soup and hearty stews as well.
If Christmas has become a mad, red
rush of consumerism, such detail
cannot be bought, so I’m not sad -

sad to see the wintry trees all bare,
sad the days are dark and short.
There is no cause for dark despair
when winter’s visions can’t be bought.

John F.B. Tucker

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If you have any thoughts about this poem,  John F.B. Tucker   would be pleased to hear them.