Modern Snow

So still so silent so serene so wan
So deathly white as if all life had gone
This dawn I see the snow has conquered Earth
And thickened over all my soul with mirth
Snow takes the life from where it falls away
As it has stole from me my heart this day
And left me to dictate my numbers plain
My Muse’s musings in my Muse’s strain
Its biting drafts in London’s chaplets blow
And forbid any Christian soul to go
So they return not once throughout the year
But I, a Muslim, struggle up to here
Mute in this church now locked and bolted long
No more whose spire invites the Christmas throng
Wherein the poet Coleridge lies dead still
‘Here on the southern slope of Highgate Hill’

Rehan Qayoom is a poet of English and Urdu, editor, translator and archivist, educated at Birkbeck College, University of London. He lives in London. Read other articles by Rehan.