Snow

It doesn’t snow here very often
but when it does it’s bitterly cold
the kind of cold that blows up your jumper
and won’t leave no matter how many layers you pile on,
the kind of cold that whistles deep into your ear drums
and lays a fearsome frost on all your extremities.
 
A cold that constantly whips around your exposed forehead
chattering noisily though you can never make out
a cognizant sound never mind a word. So much chatter
but nothing to go on, nothing to ease the chilling pains.
A distant cold that will never explain itself clearly
but will insist on mustering on dolefully
 
muttering between incoherent grumps and groans
making you feel as though you were to blame
for all this damn coldness freezing your fingertips
scorching your tongue on the too hot hot chocolate he gave you.
The kind of cold that watches your tears roll
and has nothing to say to them..

The kind of cold that leaves without due courtesy
leaving you wondering if you truly exist
or are just a fragment of the cold’s imagination,
or your own - and who are you anyway, with or without the cold?
It starts of as just a few falling flecks
that you could easily dismiss as rain -
 
unpleasant but to be expected, then, before you know it
the ground is covered in slippery gloom and white fear settles
on the roof of your heart, your mind’s pavements
turn invisible underneath the grey slush,
and in the sorry light of a streetlamp
a torrent of frosty flakes tumbles senselessly
 
around the corners of this wretched afternoon.
You turn indoors, turn away, tear your mind from ice
to less overwhelming matter, wipe away
remaining tears, find a tissue to mop up the snuffles,
blow out the whole day, inhale a breath of silence
and feel grateful that it doesn’t snow here very often.