Winter played tricks on us.

In the lean time after Christmas

the days were short yet somehow

passed very slowly. We prayed

for snow or a fire at the school

or the death of the President.

Anything at all that would trip up

the plodding routine of darkness

slowly lifting becoming darkness

slowly falling. In February the snow

finally came, thick and heavy,

burning to the touch, and it kept coming.

It stayed, banking up on the lesser used

roads, stopping the traffic. Pipes froze,

kitchens flooded, cars skidded into ditches.

Birds of all size and colour arrived to feed

off the biscuit tin lid we’d nailed

to a tree stump in the back garden.

There was nowhere to go, nothing to do.

It was Christmas without guilt or arguments.

After a week or so the temperatures rose.

Everything that was brilliant and white

became dull grey again. That was natural,

we knew, nothing good ever lasted.