Words

In Words

THE SNOW-MASONS

Upon a blank slab

artisans in succession

rocked their chisels

from edge to edge

to carve

buxom creations

MORTALITY

If we were humbled

beneath that great weight of ages

it was less by its overwhelming presence

than by the inconceivable notion -

that its remaining tenancy of that place

where light is feeble

and warmth enters slowly

could be as fleeting as a human lifetime

There we were staring mortality in the eye

THE NIGHT SHIFT

No sooner had the Sun retired

than Winter’s hand seized hold

its chill fingers probing

for chances to pluck our warmth

The stars mustered

shuddering

ready to make passage

across the long night

a planet stared

All had stilled quickly

the pommels shepherded home

the chairs hung out to collect crystals

revelry was being taken behind doors

but even the soirées would wane before long

reducing to embers across the Valais

and bittersweet veils of wood-smoke

Only the piste bashers would remain busy

bright like beacons up on the mountain

as if to comfort and reassure

like night-lights left to glow for children

SOLSTICE

Winter Solstice -

a wind and light show

The ant hills were lively enough

issuing workers

to ply the arteries

and scribble lines

But sky gloomy

and the snow globe shaken

we succumbed to lamplight

and gluwein

Unwrapped

you radiated

your cheeks slapped rosy

by a flapping hood

your chin scoured hot

by a Velcro patch

Life felt so complete

SPINDRIFT GALAXY

Encased in ice -

granules of life

stardust in suspension

the stuff of all of us

of those who came before

and of those yet to follow

THE RESET BUTTON

You are radiant this morning

in your new white slip

and I am gratified that your haunches are mine

to caress

the stitched trail draped over them for me

to pursue

I feel at one with you

connected

physically

spiritually

albeit that I'm alien here

My senses are aroused

by the contours before my eyes

the flavours around my lips

by my cardiac drum beat

and the crunching of powder underfoot

and I understand that by being here

feeling 'alive'

I am somehow reconnecting with myself

MORIBUND

Shrink into your corrie-womb

your work done

- a world shaped

why linger to tolerate the

human ego

that proclaims your ‘retreat’

as if satisfied you've submitted

in some Anthropocene era

I look upon your jaded body

grey and subdued

like tired linen

and I wonder -

about the stories you are taking to the grave

of volcanic eruptions

asteroid impacts

of the climes known by our forefathers

records in your bubble-and-dust almanacs

that will be teased from your hold

like a tree’s last leaves at the onset of winter

FLOW STATE

Immersed

in her endeavour

she was combed of the lice

that had made her weary

GUARDIAN ANGEL

There will come the time

when you can find your own way home

confident in the maelstrom

sure of your feet

but know that I will always watch over you

ready with a guiding hand

for I know life to be a fickle business

made safer by a guardian angel

REFRESHING THE PILLOW

Bed-time

wind abated

streetlights betraying

a sifted fleet

stealthily laying

siege

Restless

anticipating the fresh day

I draw the curtains

and plump my pillow

to summon sleep

ALPS - YOUNG FOLD ROCKS

How could you not command a gaze

upthrust

projecting

alluring

much as you’re still growing

But after time has served to mellow you

gentle your defiant edges

deal with the fickle & friable

you will be closer to the confident

old fold

features

that I have come to know as home

THE GHOST TRAIN

Would you happen to know Adolf Guyer-Zeller

or Charles Hudson perhaps?

Freda Currant then?

How about Herbert Lothar B. Braum and Anni Marschner -

newlyweds on eternal honeymoon?

Only they are regulars on this line

riding in the company of the others

named on headstones in Zermatt cemetery

or more often long forgotten

takings of the Matterhorn

of the great electric railway

of the winter

- the ghosts of the Gornergrat

ETYMOLOGY PART I

When

and where

did man coin words

for winter’s creations

currency

for the exchange of knowledge

implements of survival?

Did he set out to rival

the creativity of nature’s tongue -

sustragi

skavler

kaioqlaq

umarinyiq

as playful with syllables

as the wind’s antics with snow?

Am I in a better place

safe and sure

of shelter

warmth

my next meal

but so distanced

from my dependence on nature

on fellow man

that I need no more

than my one word for snow ?

ETYMOLOGY PART II

An emerging threat

is reconnecting us

to our dependency on one another

to our dependence on Mother Nature

her vulnerability exposed

We are coining idioms

carbon footprint

greenhouse gas

tipping point

re-claiming old wisdoms

sustainability

adaptation

biodiversity

in need of a new language

to face the elephant in the room

a new vocabulary for survival

THE SNOW LIZARDS

Daily

in the wake of

the great sweeping cloak

of the Eiger -

the grandest gnomon

a solar finger probed

And in that slender window

in time

in space

we basked like lizards

to warm our blood

STADEL BARNS & SERACS

They presided over our arrival

impassive sentinals

ebonised by centuries

Leaning

muddled

they imitate the seracs

a retreating rear guard

imposing custodians of Saas-Fee

a time capsule in the sky

Stored

above their saddle-stone stilts -

the sleeping grain

the old traditions

the Saracen nose

conserved for sustenance

Humble

the stadels watched the ski circus come

but it may be only matter of time

before they see it gone

SNOW FOR ME

If I close my eyes

will you lie here softly

cast a blanket across me

and nestle at my side?

Perhaps you will gather at my window

settle at my door

impartial

as you render all things clean

I will not complain if your arrival is unannounced

nor ask about the duration of your stay

I will be content in observing your delicate ways

if eager to decorate you with my footsteps

THE CLEAN BED

If there are places -

beds beneath icy sheets

where man has never slept

nor soiled

with lead from Bronze Age smelting

with fallout from Atom Bomb testing

with microplastics and ‘hi-tech’ discards

I hope that we will never succeed

In turning back their covers

AN APOLOGY TO YOUTH

I’m sorry

I had no issue with you

all baggy androgyny

and ears dribbling wires

I was just perturbed by your detachment

Only you sat slumped in a corner of the cabin

back turned on a realm of mystical summits

Les Aiguilles

so majestic that morning

atop their plinth of valley cloud

I didn’t get how you weren’t captivated

how you could be sucked elsewhere

through that portal in your palm

It wasn’t that I was slow to recognise

the recalcitrance of youth

more that I was threatened by it

my little girl already closer to her youth

than I am distant from mine

and fear began nipping -

that we might struggle for connection then

that I might lose her

to some handset

TITLIS - AN ALPINE GLACIER

Time and again

in that marvellous revolving gondola

we lingered over your fissured tongue

then scuttled twixt its clefts

on sharpened edges

to sit at its tip

stirring coffee

wafting Bratwurst

as if to torment you

But you were never an object of our contempt

for we’ve seen you too at Summer’s height -

lustrous and soot smudged

like the miner that heeds a caged bird

just as we must you -

our own canary in a coal mine

LA GUERRA BIANCA

Reclined

sun-basking

beer-licked

a blithe moment interrupted

by conscience

What horror must have performed here

to rolls of gun-thunder

implacable

and the crackling of rifle-fire

unplaceable

how much blood spilled

across these walls

and stained clean satin?

Here men must have been forged from boys

in that White War

THE LONG MAN

Fresh

perky

she indulged him

as he wriggled within her depths

to draw a slithering trail

along the white thigh

he’d eyed lustfully

Afterwards he lingered

admiring of his signature

proudly erect

every inch the The Long Man

fingers around his tools

but he knew already

that those marks imprinting on him

symbols of his rite of passage

were but a transient memory upon her

to be muddled with the frolics of others

and erased altogether

come the next fresh sheet

No matter

for Schindler Spitze had been the ‘special one’

forever to be

an object of his affection

"GOT SNOW?"

Shabby

after a late night

I lingered

swapping morning breath for mountain air

held spellbound

by God’s glittering confectionary

I was wistful in that moment

missing you being there

to be wonder-stricken with me

did you sense that somehow?

Only presently you arrived

presented by a succinct chime

in a text

terse

affectionate in a pinch of Nokia pixels:

“got snow?”

BROTHER

When he died

suddenly

too young

I withdrew to the place

where I knew I’d find

space

solace

him

I pilgrimage there now

more aware of the near than the far

more attentive to the present

awake to the presences in the shadows

grateful for life

FATHER

Ice alone didn’t make this place

but its relict forms run through it

patently

subtly

albeit that the glaciers are gone

I wasn’t made by Dad alone

but he runs through me

patently

subtly

albeit that he’s now gone

THE HUB

Throughout the

meandering courses of

our lives

every conversation

misfortune

kiss

loss

each and every event that

has befallen us since birth has

in some contributary way

conspired to bring us

here -

to this momentary hub in

our existence

the departure point for

our diverging onward journeys

BEST IN SNOW

I watched her

ski

prancing

like a dressage horse

a vision of rhythm and balance

she must be decorated appropriately

with a rosette perhaps -

‘Best in Snow’

LIFE ON MARS?

What scant whiff of life would

a martian rover sense from

these barren fields?

What trace of Pennycress

of Ragwort

of the vibrant mats and clumps that scorch in summer

might it prick from this mosaic of rock and ice?

Forgive me but

at what point does the possibility of life

on our cold red neighbour

become so incredulous?

TOIL & REWARD

Persevere

endure the arduous grind

the monotony

spurred on by the promise

that the greater the effort

the more satisfying the reward

THE PRODIGAL SUN

Funny how you can just show again

all bright and radiant

after taking leave for an age

Do you know anything

of the mischief Winter wreaked in your absence

of how we became lost in air turbid with snow

of how we were hung out to be flayed

on the coat hanger chairs that laboured and stalled

opposed by a blizzard’s spite

of how we retreated against the cold

into our synthetic chrysalides

huddling like maggots on a fish-hook

No matter

because for all that we are sapped

chapped and

frost-nipped

forgiveness has paved the way for you -

the Prodigal Sun returns

MISCARRIAGE & JUSTICE

Tell me -

how much more would you have risked

in pursuit of that dream?

Only we’d begun to question

your state of mind

You’d mustered smiles so soon

after each of the ‘losses’

presenting those rows of glossy molars

steadfast

resilient

But they belied the rot

festering deeper

We watched you brush ever closer

to those dark cavities

as if searching for the open nerve

that might disclose the pain

and permit the whole shiny pretence

to topple down

THE PRIVATE AUDIENCE

Released

from the aluminium car

braced ready against its mooring

an eager herd

bustled forth

We were the stragglers

that dallied to the brim

confident

that beyond the rush -

Cresta Youla would be our own

AROLLA - A METAPHOR FOR LIFE

How jaded had the routine made me

dot-to-dot

lap after lap

drag

blast

drag

blast

when just that little bit more effort

and the courage to depart the familiar

was all it took

to open a new world of opportunity

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF GIANTS

Ironic that it should have been

in those mountains of Aravis -

at the selfsame place where Rebelais had his giant stumble

that I found sure-footedness

Only it was there

hoisted clear of the high-rise punctured mire

clear of the clamour

and pace

that I gazed into the distance

to see possibilities

hope

and realised that my appetite for life

was as gargantuan as ever

L'HÔTEL DU MONTENVERS

Should I pity your sombre facade

witness to the ebbing tide

that has drawn Le Mer de Glace

beyond your reach?

Did you take Ruskin aghast

bold

brash and bustling

newly opened on his last visit to Chamonix

a bare-faced challenge

to his romantic reverence

for these ice-bound cathedrals?

Not that I would blame you for Ruskin’s madness

any more than I blame him

for the 'development' of the valley

In any case I’ve been lured here

over and over by

both the zeitgeist and the romanticism

the special heritage

staring wistfully at a reality -

that The Sea is gone from these shores

THE MARINER'S BURDEN

Regard -

an Albatross at your stern

Fear not

Proffer it your trust and

forever spare it harm

for we have caused damage enough

to this earth

and to the life upon it

a burden that we must carry already

around our necks

THE GEOGLYPH

“Dad,” she beseeched me

with a ski pole raised to the heavens

“it’s like they’re answering!”

And sure enough it did appear

that a crisscross of contrails

was being prepared to imitate

the passages of man

across the frozen lake below

for all the world a chart

pinned flat by snow-capped paperweights

We stayed there a good while

watching jet-planes come

from the corners of the sky

to chalk their responses

determinedly

inexorably

confidences disclosed

until hushed by the Sun

All that time she sat

wide-eyed with childish wonderment

as I told her of Nazca Lines

the Uffington White Horse

and figures in a desert somewhere or other

That evening she came to me

with images of the Blythe Intaglios

“Yes,” I confirmed, “they’re the ones. Wow!”

but I was fascinated less by the figures in the sand

than by the little marvel beside me

and her command of a search engine

THE ARAB SPRING

Displaced

by some unholy uprising

a billion grains in flight

driven

across a sea

to this continent beyond theirs

Neither the heatwave

nor the sirocco’s bluster

prepared us

for their precipitate arrival

for their settlement while we slept

for the change from white

overnight

that rendered all we knew

cinnamon

If the Bullys hurried

to etch their corridors

firebreaks

demarcations

they ploughed their veins in vain

for readily they were undone by

the meanderings of morning

and melt of afternoon

the inevitable assimilation

that will leave the land enriched

END OF THE LINE

Dad took me to beautiful places

remnants of his past

unchanged since his childhood

where he’d share scant memories

of his father

It was comforting to know

that landscapes could bridge generations

constants in a changing world

Years on I took him

proudly

to the snout of an icy leviathan

nostrils gushing meltwater

a force of nature

a symbol of longevity

and continuity

Returning

some twenty years later

a parent now

to find only vestiges of glacial occupation

a tumbling stream

rocky moraine

I’m overcome with a sense of loss

feeling that a thread has ended

my daughter denied

a connection to her ancestors

EXALTED

Among billowing cushions we perched

like angels

in some baroque fresco

bathed in a divine light

exalted

above the gloomy mortals' realm

poised to steal our shadows

DAY AT THE BEACH

Nostrils smarting

in the chill of morning

we surveyed the rippled slope

and recalled a common memory -

from childhood -

of chasing barefoot over wave-lapped sand

We grinned

like kids

as we readied to make chase once again

THE WHISTLEBLOWER

With the thaw re-emerged the Marmots

ashen coats against ashen ground

inconspicuous

until betrayed

by whistling

and horseplay

This is the jubilance of liberation

for the skiers' short lease on the Alps is closing

and soon the natives of this domain

will regain their freedom to roam

THE CHRISTMAS GOOSE

Christmas Day

clock hands closing on ten

sunlight inches across Les Arcs -

a flaccid bird brought out to warm

its goose-flesh bristling

with the keen

NO SNOW TAHOE

Christmas 2011

Diamond Peak first chair -

bird-on-a-wire rising

over buns of granite

and manzanita

hardly the plump pillows expected

- ‘Powder Heaven’ defaulting on its promise

But a ribbon of corduroy perfection

was mine for a tidy while

and skiing laps I got the low-down

- a synopsis by the base-station lifties

in bursts

between bursts

“It’s crazy - we had 600 inches last season,”

“I’m tellin’ ya - we were still skiing Fourth of July!”

“We’ve never known it like this,”

“it’s all broken for sure.”

“Hey man - forget what you think you know!”

Funny -

how the best days can come out of nowhere

how providence can provide

how those solo rides on the Crystal Express

that furnished me with a headful of pine

and memories as fresh

mark a personal threshold

gateway to the greatest of adventures

the door to our very own Narnia

developing to break surface August 25th, 2012.

BOTH SIDES NOW

Bows and flows of angel hair

And ice-cream castles in the air

And feather canyons everywhere

I've looked at clouds that way

Joni Mitchell

SNOW HAD FALLEN

Snow had fallen, snow on snow

snow on snow

in the bleak midwinter

from 'A Christmas Carol', Christina Rossetti

LAND ARTISTS

"This work was made of this place, it is a rearrangement of it, and in time will be reabsorbed by it."

Richard Long - land artist

THE SHADOW-HUNTER

Then the fear-chill gathered o’er me,

Like a shroud around me cast,

As I sank upon the snow-drift,

Where the Shadow-hunter passed.

from ‘The Walker of the Snow’, Charles Dawson Shanly (1811-75)

BELALP

It sifts from leaden sieves

It powders all the wood

It fills with alabaster wool

the wrinkles of the road.

from ‘The Snow - it sifts from leaden sieves’, Emily Dickinson

SKI ODYSSEY

And when Athena

put down around Odysseus -

a thick mist

it served to delay his recognition

of the land he knew well.

SNOW FOR US

'With luck, it might even snow for us.'

from 'After Dark, Haruki Murakami

PLACE OF WORSHIP

“I’d rather be in the mountains thinking of God, than in church thinking about the mountains.”

John Muir

Thank you for visiting Coldplaces

2024