Alan Maley has been involved with training teachers of TESOL/TEFL for 50 years.  He has published widely.  He was co-founder of The C Group (Creativity for Change in Language Education).  He is a regular contributor to  HLT Mag. Email: yelamoo@yahoo.co.uk

 

castor sugar snow

sprinkled on dead oak leaves -

just out of sun's reach ...

 

pink cherry blossom,

precocious in January -

now fretted with snow ...

 

I wake to scraping

as neighbours clear their windscreens –

me, warm in my bed …

 

winter awakenings:

as a child, I wondered at

frost flowers on windows …

 

January blackthorns,

white seed pearls bud the branches –

two months premature …

 

frozen filigree

fringes the lake - floods subside

and frost takes over ...