Snow fell across London last night. We used a 5th-century plainsong (“A Solis Ortus Cardine”) and before-and-after photographs from the woods behind our house as the basis for a new film-poem.
Snow Den
You say that you know me, like spring
knows the trees. But will you still
love me when the path becomes covered,
and the birds stop singing my name?You must become a student of winter, carry
a dagger of ice near the heart. Only then
will you see where the snow dens are made
to wait out the blue world in darkness.Will you remember the green buds to me
when the brambles are mounded with snow?
Will you remember the twigs we can weave
and which branches will give underfoot?Let us shelter awhile in the low overhang
of these trees bent down by their memories.