GILLIAN CLARKE.

Selected Poems

Snow on the mountain

There was a girl riding a white pony

Which seemed an elemental part

Of the snow. A crow cut a clean line

Across the hill, which we grasped as a rope

To pull us up the pale diagonal.

The point was to be the first at the top

Of the mountain. Our laughter bounced far

Below us like five fists full of pebbles. About us

Lay the snow, deep in the hollows,

Very clean and dry, untouched.

I arrived breathless, my head breaking

The surface of the glittering light, thinking

No place could claim more beauty, white

Slag tips like cones of sugar spun

By the pit wheels under Machen mountain.

I sat on a rock in the sun, watching

My snowboys play. Pit villages shine

Like anthracite. Completed, the pale rider

Rode away. I turned to him and saw

His joy fall like the laughter down a dark

Crack. The black crow shadowed him.