Snow in Dublin

Celtic Clipart 904
Originally uploaded by charlesbyrnemusic.

I love this poem; it's included in the Where the Hazel Falls anthology.

It's not the most elegant or serous poem, but it reminds me of the most perfect snowy morning ever a few years back...marred only by the fact that I had to go to work, thus preventing it from being a true snow day!

Snow in Dublin


You can keep your snow-capped mountains
I can pass
on fields of virgin white.
The real power of snow is seen
on chimney stacks and pavements,
perfection silhouetted against a city skyline.
Ice on the locks
of the Canal;
Prim herbaceous borders
flaunting feather boas of powdered frost
sequined like housewives at christmas.
Children freed from board and desk
run amok. Good oldfashioned amok.
There are no smells to rival
your neighbour's breakfast
cooking on a snowy morning.
Skies of leaden foreboding,
offset by central heating and
curried chips.
The fleeting pathos of a snow day
the knife-edge balance of work and
roads too snowbound for traffic
O! the thrill.
You can keep vistas of grandeur
nothing beats the slow and stately grace
of the 46A sailing past, unable to stop
on brakes too far gone for snowy roads.

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