Poem of the month: Silence the colour of snow

Published on Friday 18 December 2009 19:11

JOHN Glenday's long-awaited third collection, Grain, was 14 years in the writing. The resulting poems are distilled and quiet, finding the spiritual in the everyday details of the world around us – as in this wintry hymn to silence.

Silence the colour of snow

settles against everything we love –

the late, startled flowers, the roadside stones –

all edge softened, all calamities blurred.

Why do you accuse me of never talking with you?

You know, they used to say that

if every tongue in the world were stilled at once,

the common silence would translate itself

to a snow that summer winds

could never drive away. Hush now, not another word.

Look! High over the frozen roofs,

my answer hangs and falls, that six-fingered star.

You can borrow Grain from the Scottish Poetry Library (Crichton's Close, Canongate, Edinburgh EH8 8DT), which also lends by post. Tel: [phone], e-mail [e-mail] or visit www.spl.org.uk