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.
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.
ReplyDeleteAnd then I thought about T.S.Eliot and his lines that seem carved on stone...
Best, Davide Trame