Winter

                                 
Trees stripped back
to who they barely are.
Dead wood stacked
like a pile of bones.
The path white like
bone showing through yet 
soft and wet underfoot.
For a moment I am like this.
Earth and wood and ice
with nowhere to hide.
Raw, down to the bone,
exposed, holding my spine
up straight to the wind.
A soft sad heart beating
somewhere underfoot.  

Frost

Blades of grass turned to sparkly white pipe-cleaners,
we touch them to bend and mould
but they crumble, seeming both soft and crisp,
becoming powdery on our gloves,
leaving the grass naked and green.

Biology, explaining ovulation.
His downcast eyes,
"They could have been
my brothers and sisters".

And  a moment did cry out yesterday in my head while I was invigilating, but it never made it to the computer. Here it is:

Invigilators

We stand spaced apart

like the points of a starfish,

180 children between us

heads bent in concentration

but one, staring ahead, just staring,

pen untouched on the desk.