Deliverance 

1)

When asleep, I find my beloved snow.

I'm walking through the forest, it is all around, it is close beside me.

I walk and walk, through the snow, my legs become heavy and aching;

but the way is delicious, astonishing, addictive, 

a vision of undisturbed purity and radiance.

I do not wish to discover, or be led towards any clearing, any revelation,

any idea posing as a resolution to suffering.

I wish to wander, to worship, feel the longing.

I do not want to return to morning, to matter and chatter, to my fallenness.

Instead, may I be turned to wood,

and stand through centuries of other's sadness and grieving,

with the ferns, the mosses, the ivy.

May I observe, but be unmoved; may I feel a little, but be unable to do anything.

2)

Upon waking, I feel that the snow hasn't come, so I cannot die.

The snow hasn't come for so long, I yearn for it so.

But it doesn't come and I am not touched by it,

and I know I want to die in the snow; so this must be postponed.

If I had energy left, I could travel to another land where the snow still falls,

and then lay down; such blessed relief.

And I would not turn blue or grey, or be grimacing or pitiful.

I shall be transformed, rearranged, purged of all dishonours, cowardice, duplicities.

-No more betrayals.

But, for years there has been just rain and swirling wind,

never a completely still day; I cannot bear it any more.

I can keep faith only with the the cold, the stillness.

3)

When going about my duties, I do not consider or comprehend much.

I have ice water for blood, icicles for hands and feet.

My soul is a frozen lake.

A snowflake is my heart (it falls),

it is delicate, refined, subject to enchantment,

-it melts......is always melting;

but when wounded, it tries to freeze.

I do not look up or down, the pools of water that are my eyes would spill,

and I would cry forever.

I hold myself steady, with carapace and accumulated devices of magic,

the artifices of self-deception.

4)

Many times, in utter joy, excitement, reverence,

there in the exquisite, rare, January light,

are seen the clusters of winged seeds of the Ash,

hanging like gold-braided epaulets, on black branches

against the blue sky.

I taste, see, smell, touch this; I remember it always.

5)

WHOOSH!

I have pieces of ice on my woollen hat, my heart is beating fast,

stupid people in my way, standing around yacking;

my boots are hanging off the end of the toboggan, sliding this way and that.

WHOOSH!...I go, feet first;

WHOOSH!...I go, head first;

WHOOSH!...I go, sitting, holding the string to steer;

-and WHOOSH!...paddling frantically with my arms, faster, turning, slewing.

There was just that, and then, and the grey skies.

There are, truly, only physical experiences, 

sensations, feelings in and through our bodies.

There is just a handful of these occasions, meanly scattered through our lives,

times blessedly free from distraction, concern, contingency.

It's not fair!

WHOOSH!

The last time, nearly dark, cold, forlornly pulling the the sledge back up the hill,

jerking the scraped runners from rut to rut.

Then home: the coal fire, marrow soup, nettle soup, bean soup,

and dreadful school in the morning.

6)

When it comes again, the proper snow,

I shall let it fall and settle for a while.

Then, in my finest dress, I'll wander in the woods, select my snowdrift.

I'll curl up.

 Oh, I feel it: there is snow on my eyes, in my ears, on my mouth, in my nose.

It is very good. 

Pain recedes.

In time, I am taken up, into the Larch, the Birch,

there to stand for centuries through other's sadness and grieving;

-with the ferns, the mosses, the ivy, the fungi.

I observe, but am unmoved; 

I feel a little, but am unable to do anything.

Peter Jennings : February 2016

'Deliverance : Six Pieces for Piano and Voice'
is performed on youtube at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1v9ZpcC5v4U