Today’s response poem is from J.V. Birch inspired by Helena Nelson’s interview.
In Creativity in Lockdown with Helena Nelson she spoke of 2awe walks” :
” I heard a radio talk about ‘awe’ walks as a way of boosting the spirits, and realised I’d been doing them without knowing. On an ‘awe’ walk you deliberately look for one thing to marvel at, on a walk of any length. I usually photograph whatever it is. Sometimes it’s cloud formations. Sometimes weird fungi. Sometimes the colour of new grass. Or frost melting on a leaf. Snowberries on a bare twig. Today, swans on the ice. There are amazing things around you if you’re looking for them. What could be better for a person, and a poet, than an active sense of wonder?”
Bright with ice
A cold cap is tugged onto my head
chin strap tightened so the fit is as snug as it can be.
I try to smile, feel it pull.
Buttons pressed bring a creeping freeze
and a desperate scream I swallow.
The blood in my scalp slows.
I picture its tiny paths becoming bright with ice
like a wintered web.
A warm blanket is tucked around me
to still my uncontrollable shiver.
The fifteen minutes to acclimatise eventually pass
then everything blissfully
turns into nothing.
