Snowdrops by Will Snelling

The day ages backwards.

A sunless morning, then light

Does its slow reveal

Behind black marionettes

Of distant winter trees,

Slicing up rain-clouds,

The sun a squirt of lemon juice

That makes us squint in our scarves

And button up our coats.

My hands are blueish purple;

The month cannot get any longer.

We’re weary with January’s thinness,

With waiting for the future's

dirty-dishwater hues.

But the day is trying something,

Against its darkening edges:

Woodsmoke drifts from gardens,

Filtered by leafless trees,

Perfuming the suffering air.

Sometimes, this going-nowhere

Is enough: circling the park

As a crow you like hops by,

And then a family of crows,

Happy and black as coal.

Then snowdrops at the base

Of an old and rain-soaked tree,

Like careless flicks of paint.

I name them triumphantly, ‘snowdrops!’

with an idiotic grin.

‘Snowdrops’ you say, to confirm it,

In the dirty, falling light,

As evening creeps up behind us.

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Will Snelling is a writer from Hastings and a research student at Bristol University. His poems have been published by The Phare, the Poetry Society and Helicon Magazine, and in his spare time he cooks a variety of pasta sauces and plays in the band Oslo Twins.