Winter Trails

Inconsequence

What I choose to scrutinise
must show itself as clear
only as questions I set.

Since it is the daylight I examine,
I’ve never known a year more full of sun,
which even now brightens on my wet-room door
and empty tin of beans on kitchen top
by cooker I have yet to clear away.

Between the juniper and yew,
he climbs to his low zenith for the day
out of a grave season,
come to kiss my eyes with bliss
like a father dazzling in his prime
greets a weeping infant fretting
in the darkness he finds spun within
his own callow heart.

So when so young I heard the drop forge
darken rooms, when colanders
had a thousand eyes and round
light switches boggled hard

I would run to the radio left faint on
and put my ear to hear the music play,
that cultural sunlight easing
the dark heart-beating fears away.

I had forgotten just how golden is the light
of winter sun all day long:
pure gold mornings and evenings,
white gold noons, red gold at first
of dawn and last of sunset - rare
to see it all way clear of cloud.

The gleam, meanwhile has gone:
the long unasked questions 
long unanswered.