The Big Sky

The Big Sky

 

Once upon a Highland day, snow had fallen

and frozen ever after a world closed in

of blocked roads and schools closed.

Mountain trappings, halfway to the big sky

and he might reach Jacob’s ladder

if only he pulled her blanket neck tight,

tucked in with more of a snarl than a grin.

She’s sending him away with a snowball,

white flakes all in tight tourniquets   

and each individual packs clenched ice

to sign the future, but here, but now,

but a little way above his head: the big sky.

To fight alongside her imagined children,

these gay coloured striplings in red, in bed,

in anywhere else but here, don’t fear the trek

for stringed mittens hanging loose from sleeves

adorn snow-white branches of pine trees,

and hoary the cracks upon frozen lochs.

Only a little way down the track

looking back at her world closed in, falling

all those flakes, each its own gem within

the thickening skin, wipes icy nose with icy glove,

must suffocate below here or here rise above.