Can you face the storm?
Stand proud in an inch of snow?
You laugh – do you know
what an inch of snow
feels like? Could you stand
the cold, alone in the snow,
while a Northern wind blows,
and the eaves in Spring
shake and groan, house shudders
with a January moan; would you
as a tulip, stand alone; vibrant
green in an inch of snow?
Blaze roseate — cancel that —
be the emblem of fresh in flame,
familiar but never the same,
you are my only flame, still
wondrous but never the same.
That which goes and that
which remains – the trick is this:
rise as quick above what’s slow,
nimbly blossom ‘twixt the snow.
Peterborough Poets 