Dedication to Brenda Tomlinson

When you wrote to tell of your arrival,

It was midnight, you said, and knew In wishing me Goodnight that I Would have been long abed. And that was true. I was dreaming your way for you, my dear, Freed of the mist that followed the snow here, And yet it followed you (within my dream, at least) Nor could I close my dreaming eye To the thought of further snow Widening the landscape as it sought The planes and ledges of your moorland drive. I saw a scene climb up around you That whiteness had marked out and multiplied With a thousand touches beyond the green And calculable expectations summer in such a place Might breed in one. My eye took in Close-to, among the vastnesses you passed unharmed, The shapes the frozen haze hung on the furze Like scattered necklaces the frost had caught Half-unthreaded in their fall. It must have been The firm prints of your midnight pen Over my fantasia of snow, told you were safe, Turning the threats from near and far To images of beauty we might share As we shared my dream that now Flowed to the guiding motion of your hand, As though through the silence of propitious dark It had reached out to touch me across sleeping England.

from ‘Winter Journey’, The Return (1987)