Ashes and Snow
That Wednesday I wondered at snow
flake-falling for an hour although
it was already early March.
Leaving behind a fouled track
I received the day’s memento, black
blotch on forehead. I recalled
seeing my father throw ashes
in the garden fifty years ago,
watching them sink through snow.
I was surprised: then as now
after the turning of three days
snow melts but ashes stay.
Michael Farry.
This is actually a poem for Ash Wednesday - next Wednesday. It was written in April 2006. There had been a small fall of snow on or near Ash Wednesday that year so I played with the image of snow and ashes.
I remembered my father throwing out the ashes in the end of the garden on top of snow.
The poem was printed in the UK magazine Carillon in April 2007.
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1 comment:
Dear Michael Farry,great poem. I was speaking of Ash Wednesday this morning in my class telling the sudents to come to Venice on Ash Wednesday just after the hullaballoo of Carnival is finished, here n Venice, in the most chaotically meaningless period of the year.
And then I thought about T.S.Eliot and his lines that seem carved on stone...
Best, Davide Trame
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