Shostakovich – 8th String Quartet, 1st movement
Slabs of grey rock sliding to black
ledges and holds ice watch that
a wrong move sometimes just by luck
and stupid confidence on up the cleft
and swing over onto brush the snow out
the way beside your face snow crystals studding
the ice glazed rock hardly noticeable
the dull glimmer of it
The air a diffuse grey glow below
a lace of snow fidgeting on the small frozen lake
down there through this glittering space
a strange stillness a pause in the search
through a maze choices upwards a slanting crack
a vertical line move one after the other
up blocks of rock off how the hand grips
and the shoulders heave a castle of sorts
a prize of sorts
On my knees now staring in disbelief
praying
a snow flurry over a horizon of black spikes
an empty untouched snow-field ahead steeply slanting
pitched off into air
by Lee Harwood
from Poetry Wales Vol 29 No 1 (March 1993)