Snow, hill-whitening, while a cool sun journeys
Slowly
Beyond the cloud
That touches the Mynd in a slow dance
Of beauty.

There is a moment, of youthful hope:
A Thrush to descend down to pick
The storm-red berries from a grey-green tree
Of holly
Stout, strong, from more than ten-score sun-warmed
Summers.

It is the twilight time, of life:
There is no music, no painting, no books in preparation
For this
As if the labours of those who artfully laboured
Went unremarked, misunderstood
Thousand year upon thousand year:
Few seeds sown, as berries sow new life.

Yet I heard them call out, once, often, in a dreamful youth
When hilltop viewing at night beneath
A night of stars
Knowing no difference because I had yet to learn
As adults learn
To constrict the flow of Thought:
One individual, striving, among so many
With so many needs
To feed the flow of life.

All things, if in their treasured smallness, bring a remembering
Of the empathy which is our own evolution
Of life.

DW Myatt