"Love Is Snow"

A poem read by the poet on the BBC Radio 3 program "Northern Drift" (available here for 10 more days)

"Love Is Snow" - Clare Shaw


If love is snow,
I want to be the kind of person
who is always glad when it snows -
when the air comes alive,
when you wake to a different light.

If love is snow,
I want to say YES to sledging
even if I'm eighty, and my hips hurt,
even if it's late
and the moon is out, the fields are
bright

and if a snowball slaps me - whack -
in the back of my head,
I don't want to be the kind of person
who storms off, muttering about kids.

If love is snow
I want fistfuls of the stuff for myself.
I don't care if it stings
or if the trains are cancelled.
I don't mind being late for work,

I want the whole town
to wake to snow,
to run out with our eyes full of wonder,
ready to jump right in.

If love is snow
I want to stay the kind of person
who finds it beautiful,
even when I fall.