Two Snowdrop Poems

 

Snowdrops John Noonan

Thanks to poet John Noonan for taking a photo of the snowdrops in his garden. Below are two pieces on the subject of the flower, and this time of the year. The first was written nearly fifteen years ago and I have slightly edited it. The second I wrote maybe two years ago. I'm still waiting to see my first snowdrop in the flesh, this January.

A Snowman and a Snowdrop Fleeting

Now I am a sculpture

my skin is cold, patterned

with fingerprints, texture

soft and full of clumps.

By my feet fluffy and wet,

is my daughter budding hope,

pure as a pearl, or an aching tear

shed before daffodil hour.

As it grows dark

the land is lavender quiet.

She nods her head in the wind

and I alone understand her silently.

We are not here for long 

we concur.  By nature

I am older and she, younger.

Together we drift.

A snowman and a snowdrop

stand between falling flakes,

neither the wiser, 

still, they are time.

Orla Fay

***

Snowdrop, Fallen Star

She calls to me, 

blissful ballerina,

the happiest thing on the embankment.

Galanthus, the milk of flowers,

hope splashed woods, fields 

and pathways her design.

Among blooms she is singular,

her trembling stem liminal,

coaxed by that expectant sun.

A sisterhood clusters

along a hedgerow, almost hidden.

They have little to say

in the nights that succumb

yet to flickering candlelight,

as the tide returns from glimmerwane,

the year half asleep, still dreaming.

She curls toes in a dawn,

while opening her eyes 

to the Plough and the Blue Moon.

Orla Fay