No one will be in the house
But twilight. Just the same
Winter day in the gap
The gathered curtains frame.
Only swiftly beating wings
Of white flakes as they fall.
Only roofs and snow, and but
For roofs and snow – no one at all.
And frost again will start too sketch.
And I again will find despairs
Of last year whirling me back
To another winter's affairs.
And they again will sting me
With last year's guilt, the same,
Unexpiated. Lack of wood
Will cramp the window-frame.
Then suddenly the curtain
Will shudder at the door
And you will come in, like the future,
Making no sound on the floor.
And you will stand there wearing
Something white, no lace, no braid,
Something made from the fabric
From which snowflakes are made.
by Бори́с Леони́дович Пастерна́к
(Boris Leonidovich Pasternak)
(1931)
translated by Jon Stallworthy and Peter France
Tag: snowflake
Blind Noel by R. S. Thomas
Christmas; the themes are exhausted.
Yet there is always room
on the heart for another
snowflake to reveal a pattern.
Love knocks with such frosted fingers.
I look out. In the shadow
of so vast a God I shiver, unable
to detect the child for the whiteness.
by R. S. Thomas
from No Truce with the Furies (1995)
Snowflake Souffle by X. J. Kennedy
Snowflake souffle,
Snowflake souffle
Makes a lip-smacking lunch
On an ice-cold day.
You take seven snowflakes,
You break seven eggs,
And you stir it seven times
With your two hind legs.
Bake it in an igloo,
Throw it on a plate,
And slice off a slice
With a rusty ice-skate.
– by X. J. Kennedy