Snow in Ilkley 1963

Not entirely welcome.  Tends to block

Disrupt communications.  The loaf of bread

In peril locked in the shop beyond

Collection.  The Aston Martin garagebound.

Yet on the credit side the mechanisation.

Snow ploughs as legion circulating freely.

Even footways with chugging motor

And following man moving the fresh fall.

But in the fields and parks pockmarked

By the Wellington and fur-lined boot

The children traditionally toboggan with

Shrill cries and "wild unearned alarms."

And the snow on the moor.  Who knows

But what in those wild regions drifts

A high house deep abound, and footprints

Of birds and beasts unknown strike fear

Into the breast of naturalists and motorists

Stranded, weak from want of food and

Blinded by the three dimensional threat

Of nature unleashed from the windscreen’s comforting frame?