The warm roots of the heart

I can, quite simply, never read through this pictured, 2008 'Collected Poems', volume enough times ...

... I really do continue to believe that Norman Nicholson is massively under-rated --- here's one of his verses from within:


Winter Song

The blowing clouds are blue of face.
Dark skeletons of trees
Are fleshed with snow.
The sky sags low;
The bramble's tagged with lace,
And snuffly gutters freeze.

Come, blizzard, block my sight and black it,
And freeze my creaking blood.
Let heel and hand
As scarecrow stand
Wrapped in an ermine jacket,
A stoat's coat round the wood.

But still the berries have no rest,
The aching seedless start
Once more to grow,
And fingers know
Beneath the icy breast
The warm roots of the heart.

---

Norman Nicholson (1914 - 1987)

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