Time was, they would air lift food supplies <\/p>\n It comes in the night, like a mother, rain passed over our eyes in a game. Take hands against the earth\u2019s mirror. The dream flickers were more forgiving and give up its light- into the earth. We stand at our windows, hush<\/em>, a lullaby. The street is all hush an incessant hush, hush<\/em> at the window Warming Time was, they would air lift food supplies to hill farms trenched in snow for months. We\u2019ve not seen that here for twenty years. Christmas is warm and wet, viruses spoiling through the closed-in valleys like gossip. February, no doubt, will be the same slide into March, weeks of white-lid skies, least path a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[346,349],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nto hill farms trenched in snow for months.
\nWe\u2019ve not seen that here for twenty years.
\nChristmas is warm and wet, viruses spoiling
\nthrough the closed-in valleys like gossip.
\nFebruary, no doubt, will be the same slide
\ninto March, weeks of white-lid skies, least
\npath a mud slick, weather a little deeper
\nin your joins. That year, pipes froze so hard
\nyou had to hold a candle to the joists and hope
\nfor the crack, the break, the fissure in the ice;
\na two bar fire on your wall a surgeon\u2019s mask,
\ndull, red, ugly but utterly wonderful<\/em> when the
\npower returned. The Thames froze and milk
\narrived on skis to burst tops on doorsteps
\nlike over-proved bread; across Devon sheep
\ncocooned like embryos in blue tombs,
\nthe lamb replete and perfect in its birth sac.
\nNow these supplicant frostings at New Year
\nare sticking plasters on the black wound
\nof the earth, an inch of ice-cube snowballs
\nfriable as buck shot. There\u2019s blossom
\nin the lane, birds have begun their relay
\nof twig and feather, crows tumble catch-me
\nin the humid air and we\u2019ve given up on winter
\nwhen all of a sudden overnight in Heptonstall
\na muffler drops a white sheet over the moor.<\/p>\nSestina for Rain<\/h4>\n
\nstealing into our dreams, lulling us, hush
\nhush<\/em>, a lullaby sung beyond the window,
\ncurtains shut tight against streetlights
\nthat now hiss and stutter, now flicker
\nyellow and out, yellow and out, a hand<\/p>\n
\nin the street for the night dances, the rain
\nnow a drummer drumming at our feet, hush
\nhush<\/em> and together, the beat a window
\nto a collective dream. Lighter and light
\nwe are turned and lifted \u2013 gold starts, flickers<\/p>\n
\nand fails and morning steals the night, its hands
\na lullaby on the sheets as the rain
\nflattens hayfields to a yellow hush
\nas hush<\/em>, go wind and rain at the window.
\nWe\u2019d almost forgive the rain if the light<\/p>\n
\nfingered steal on the morning. Night flickers,
\nyellow drifts of pollen on our hands
\nfrom a dream of hayfields. The street is rain-
\nrushed, rain-rocked, rain-sung, a lullaby, hush,
\nhush<\/em> as rain dances open a window<\/p>\n
\na dream collective wishing the light
\nwould shatter the steel-fall of rain, flickers
\nof yellow birds, a pair of gold hands.
\nInstead, the street is curtained with rain, rain
\nfills the fields, the lanes, as the drains go hush<\/p>\n
\nhush with rain, a dream song at our windows
\nwhere we sit, collectively, and watch light
\ndim and stutter, dip, falter and flicker,
\nmatches struck in the cups of our hands
\nagainst the night, against the wind, the rain<\/p>\n
\nwhere light flickers yellow and out, yellow
\nand out, our hands cups, the mothers of rain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"