QUITE STILL, STILL COLD... (My new poem inspired by a Peter Brook painting...)

 Quite Still, Still Cold…

(Inspired by Peter Brook’s painting…)

Paths and stone walls probe like tendrils from the farm,

Their routes undulating in accord with distant moorland hills

And the sinuous green curve of a conifer wood, leaning, wind blown

Towards the sleek swathes of snow, which smother the layers

Of fields, scored as if ink stained and pockmarked in their perspective.

As the weather’s disquieting grip persists and it disgorges a cruel charm, 

A lone chimney spills warm sepia into the greyscale chills, 

A retaliation, a smearing, a statement of intent quietly shown,

Whilst bare foreground trees stand guard like a row of inanimate soothsayers

Hinting of warmer times, their skeletal nakedness forming a stubborn collective…  

Pete Ray…

14th February 2026…

Words about the painting from another source...

'I was transfixed and intrigued by this ostensibly stark painting.

The predominant shades of grey and white led my first focus to the line of the woods in the distance, the tracks and individual trees in the foreground. Thus my eyes darted around the full scope of the painting.

As I looked closer into the far distance an almost imperceptible, slightly warm hue in the cold sky made me wonder whether a weak sun was rising and maybe this was very early morning. 

The white snow in that far distance stood out perhaps due to the coming light and so reflecting the weak rays. It may also have been a fresh fall of heavy snow in that location.

The black tracks that criss-cross the snow contrast so dramatically with the delicately coloured, almost monochrome fields. It feels cold. The buildings scattered around are all capped with snow and there are no animals or people to be seen. It is indeed very cold and feels quiet too.

The stillness and calm is accentuated by the contrast of warm brownish tones of a snow-covered house situated under a snow-laden hillside right in the foreground. This exudes warmth with the brownish tones and texture of the walls and what seems to be pale yellow smoke rising from a chimney, yet barely moving as it rises and drifts. 

The bare, stark trees alongside, silently shout that this is most certainly winter.'