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?