The Tablet Poem by Carol Ann Duffy

Carol Ann Duffy
18 December 2025, The Tablet

Anne-Marie Forker, Alamy

Snow

Then all the dead opened their cold palms
and released the snow; slow, slant, silent,
a huge unsaying, it fell, torn language; settled,
the world to be locked, local; unseen,
fervent earthbound bees around a queen.
The river grimaced and was ice.

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