Winter

Fog rolls like a lava flow down snow heavy hills.

Freezing.  Bleeding white on white. Crushing the

colour out of the land. A liminal landscape.

A blurred elemental boundary like a

a rubbed out pencil mark on an envelope.

A faded  spectral address.

The muffled chords of distant traffic underscore

the  howling winds. A white noise that drowns

the bleat of the sheep on the high slopes.

Stoic and still, their fleeces  frozen,  they huddle  like

temporary statues. Soft  breathe breaks the brittle air as they

drift shoulder to shoulder against the dry-stone, snow blown wall

and wait  to labour their lambs in to the world.

And beneath the snow the spring swells.