Your Warm Winter Poem by Richard Blanch

Two leaves, on a beech, in mid-Winter
Blown, dry, clatter.

It is the time of the yews and the fire
And the cedars; funereal month.
Days when hope sinks in the mud under the wych gate
And comes not, or comes spectral, laughing
With a dry clang that promises no spring.

But that you carry a piece of the butterfly sun in your hand
Waiting chrysalis-like for the moment-

I would curl up tonight like a tortoise in hay
And hope that the frost would be strong where I lay.

Wind blew in the night; the beech twig is bare
But the pupa has opened. Your warmth in the air
Gives my chilled arms a sureness; spring’s here in your hair.






1970