Brighouse Bay

The Lakes looked stunning in a fresh white covering of snow this morning as I headed north to meet my friends who are up from Cornwall spending the week at Gatehouse of Fleet. We spent the afternoon catching up on a glorious walk in bright sunshine along the coast path and didn’t see a single soul. There was quite a brisk wind and the sea was roiling amongst the rocks, the windswept gorse and low shrubs clung to the cliff edge like an old man’s well trimmed beard and a lone red kite wheeled above us hunting.

After a late lunch I headed back home listening to the most wonderful bit of radio devoted to Louis MacNeice’s poem, ‘Snow’. It was such a joy to hear various poets reading, re-reading, commenting and reflecting in depth on one poem. It was pure delight. I so wished P could have heard it; he’d have adored it too.
Here’s the poem ...

Snow - Louis MacNeice

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes—
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands—
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.