Saturday, February 21, 2009

A Poem for Saturday


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.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

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