February – not everywhere – Norman MacCraig

Such days, when trees run downwind,
their arms stretched before them

Such days, when the sun’s in a drawer
and the drawer locked.

When the meadow is dead, is a carpet,
thin and shabby, with no pattern

and at bus stops people retract into collars
their faces like fists.

– And when, in a firelit room, a mother looks
at her four seasons, at her little boy

in the centre of everything, with still pools
of shadows and a fire throwing flowers.
 

Source: MacCaig, N 1990, Collected poems: A new edition, Polygon.