LITTONDALE IN THE SNOW: A POEM ABOUT A PAINTING BY ANYA SIMMONS...

 Littondale In The Snow…

(from the Yorkshire Dales painting by Anya Simmons…)

Barbed trees flank a group of tidy dwellings,

Like Somme trench wire glaring at an approaching storm;

Conifers, having shaken off clinging snow

Now furl

In futile attempts to shrug

From their mantles the blizzard’s cloying flakes;

Perturbed birds surge above blanketed roofs

And clipped hedges like iced cakes;

Yet the snow soon sets out its pallid stall 

  To swirl

And indiscriminately fall,

Gust and bluster, then cluster  

And hurl

Its beauty upon Littondale’s tranquility serene…

Pete Ray

November 2020