Winter
Wait. Watch a scimitar of heath
chicane above the fencepost silhouettes,
careen along the hillside’s windward crease,
as drab as the branches where it settles.
Wait. See the ground start up and fly
and leave its long-legged shadows in the snow.
Observe a wing of primrose in the sky,
how long it takes for anything to grow.
Wait. Count dull barbs on silver wire,
sodium stars that pierce the closing dusk,
wheat stalks scorched in the harvest fire,
the total sum of humanity’s flux.
Will waiting help us understand how much
of us is there, how much of there is us?Winter was one of the poems commissioned by Bouygues UK through First Aid Art as part of the Our Storeys Poetry Wall Project at North Middlesex University Hospital, Lead Artist Sue Ridge. The poem is displayed in the Outpatients Waiting area.
