The Snowberry in Me

Barren the stalk, the air is clear —
delicate and small, yet dangles the berry,
beguiled. Ice-cold fragrance hugs
a jam-packed silver void.

Silken, fragile, the berry’s sheer skin —
both taut and tender in my mind,
bounds a baleful, inward tug —
the pull of netherwordly time.

Vitreous roots swallow the light,
leaves, ironclad, shimmer and glisten,
the calyx, leaf fibres, close-packed and lucent:
this phlegmatic solitude defines the I.

Your love is my frost.
I carry your winter within me.

by Mary-Jane Newton


A lazy Sunday, catching up on all the tv I'd missed while I was away. Just had to watch Strictly and British Bakeoff before anyone blabbed and told me the results! A very wet morning, but in the afternoon the sun was out long enough for a short walk...