In the great silence of snow

Last night the temperature fell to -7c but this morning the sun shone and the snow covered fields were exceptionally beautiful glistening and sparkling. Extraordinary how few people venture out to enjoy them. Rufus and Grey Granite walked down towards Merryhillock and were privileged to be able to watch a pair of roe deer in the middle of a completely unblemished snow field. First we saw the buck, reddish with a creamy white scud standing stock still, he was shortly joined by a doe, they stood together for a short while before running in a wide arc across the field, sending up  a fine dust of powdery snow as they went - eventually disappearing in a patch of gorse and scrub. What a life affirming sense of being engaged with the world comes from being able to watch wild animals and birds going about their lives oblivious to one's presence.

This sighting sent Grey Granite back to browse one of her favourite poets, Edward Thomas, for the sake of:

Snow

In the gloom of whiteness,

In the great silence of snow

A child was sighing

and bitterly saying: 'Oh,

They have killed a white bird up there on her nest,

The down is fluttering from her breast!'

and still it fell through that dusky brightness

On the child crying for the bird of the snow.

and this

Out in the Dark

Out in the dark over the snow

The fallow fawns invisible go

With the fallow doe;

And the winds blow

Fast as the stars are slow.

Stealthily the dark haunts round

And, when the lamp goes, without sound

At a swifter bound

Than the swiftest hound,

Arrives, and all else is drowned;

And star and I and wild and deer,

Are in the dark together, - near,

Yet far, - and fear

Drums on my ear

In that sage company drear.

How weak and little is the light,

All the universe of sight,

Love and delight,

Before the might,

If you love it not, of night.