Snow

This is a draft I wrote at the weekend. It will explain what I'm up to at present.
I hope you are doing well.

Snow

for Nieves

I’ve pruned the roses, cut back herbaceous
shoots and stems and planted primulas in pots,
so you can see a little colour from the window
when you get home. Now I’m on my knees,
with a knife, scraping weeds from pavers.

Dandelion, couch grass and yellow-flowered
oxalis, till fingers find a tiny, hairy seedling
that my eyes identify as comfrey, knit-bone,
and I smile, because it seems a good omen, as if
this life is still willing to give you what you need.

Miles away in that hospital bed you are a flightless,
featherless, gawky baby bird; secondary growth excised,
two new titanium branch lines shoring up your spine.

You once said your name means snow in Spanish.
Well it can only be the kind of snow that falls
high above the tree line, up on the sierras and picos.
Powdery and dazzling - snow at its best.
Snow that persists.