every time I glance out of the window, love,
grey clouds slink down into our valley deep
and filter out all colour: grey above,
below, and grey behind our balcony when sleep
creeps up like time on light, and all around our space
the mist coils spreading from the glacier
of kitzsteinhorn, and river salzach’s waters race
and roil beyond the moor’s dark clumps of birch and alder
where wagtail, dipper, and sad willow warbler
chatter cross the fens beside the spa’s hot springs.
around us in the town, the fog clings
to the streets, a scattering of ghosts without a face –
we sip a schnapps, our spirits warm, and love
each other, smiling, dissolved into the place.
Omm
Mid-April 2017
You’ve excelled yourself with this one. Gloriously evocative.
Thank you, Sandie – I’m glad you like it.
Another fine love sonnet. This is a remarkably spacious sonnet – there is an ample sense of capaciousness in it, of that makes any sense. Sonnets can seem very channeled, and almost claustrophobic in the worlds they depict, but this one feels open and spacious, to my way of reading it. I agree that it is evocative. I have never been to that part of Austria but this gives me a good sense of its MittelEuropean atmosphere.
Thanks, James, I value your thoughts.