Why should it choose this moment to arrive,
actual as then within my brain,
Arran's peaks so calm and pink in snow,
carmine on the eye, Himalayan in miniature,
in a winter dawn? And drew me out
frost-struck, unwashed,
sleep-creased, knowing it would go
in minutes, and somehow had to be
witnessed in its otherworldly quiet.
Bony as a fasted monk,
out of the unheated caravan
I am there again
in hastily thrown-on coat
and bare feet thrust in shock-cold shoes,
and blow into my hands
and stamp, watching the roseate light dilute
to the gleam of snowy amber,
the chill rime brushing my sockless ankles
as I return through the whitened blades.
Written by Gerry Cambridge.
Published in Gerry's collection The Light Acknowledgers & Other Poems, Happenstance, 2019, is availalbe from www.happenstancepress.com