Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, WINTER WEATHER, by JAMES WREFORD WATSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WINTER WEATHER, by                    
First Line: Wintering time and weather with
Last Line: Eternity, but not this hour.
Alternate Author Name(s): Wreford, James
Subject(s): Love; Winter


Wintering time and weather with
the mercury low and locked in wrestling winds
precipitate upon our breath
snows that are not our sin:
so do not blame the frozen face
and eyes whose very tears are ice,
nor the dipping pole has spoked the race
thrown out of gear the wise
and well bred wonder, love,
the mechanised passion and blue-print kisses
and the streamlined marriage that seemed unmov-
ably stable and was not really missed.
For shall he not who backs the wind
and on his left hand feels it know
the storms are near that to the blind
such bitter bleakness sow?
Then not this fanged and fearful frost
green-griming and still balmless blight
but, after all, this putting to rest
and at long last winter quiet;
not the thin blood which God knows He
made for the gardens of Babylon and
moon drenched Cyclades above a tideless sea:
not the environmental and germ-true man,
but blame, if you must, this prime
unreasonable claim against the drift
and masking shadow and the time
turning away from Egypt's cleft
embosoming but embattled love;
the little Shulammite that prized
Solomon above the lilies, and above
the green of Eden, an Eden fossilised.
Blame this, if at all—the dry, unsatiated cry
for lips that yet more red than human are
and for those arms would underlie
eternity, but not this hour.





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