<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Hunters in the Snow Pieter Breugel the Elder<\/em><\/p>\n This is where the ground falls away Out of view three wives are waiting This, though, is no scene of return. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ian Heffernan<\/strong> was born just outside London, where he still lives. He graduated from UCL and SOAS and now works with the homeless. His work has been published recently in the High Window, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Cha, Antiphon, South Bank Poetry, London Grip, Under the Radar<\/em> and elsewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hunters in the Snow Pieter Breugel the Elder This is where the ground falls away And the hunters start their descent. Cold, tired and more-than-defeated They contemplate the gradient While their dogs nose their way through snow, Tails down, cold and tired too; above A bird is swallowed by its flight; Below […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[138,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2019-poetry-picks","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18134"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18135,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18134\/revisions\/18135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nAnd the hunters start their descent.
\nCold, tired and more-than-defeated
\nThey contemplate the gradient
\nWhile their dogs nose their way through snow,
\nTails down, cold and tired too; above
\nA bird is swallowed by its flight;
\nBelow are tiny silhouettes:
\nSkaters, game-players, watching friends,
\nWho show us life\u2019s vernacular;
\nBeyond, dull white-grey land slinks off
\nOr rises to fictitious peaks.<\/p>\n
\nAnd stirred by a presentiment
\nOf failure, they begin to coax
\nTheir husbands out of\u00a0 their absence.
\nFaces, names reassume themselves.
\nThe hunters enter winter rooms
\nTo brave unasked-for franknesses,
\nTaut wisecracks, sadness like a kick.
\nFor half an afternoon perhaps
\nTheir women chunner, tut and fleer
\nBut then grow calm and love again
\nWithout condition or concern.<\/p>\n
\nIt looks like that, but think: these men
\nHave been in earshot of silence
\nOut there where the blank air gathers,
\nObserving light conspire with snow.
\nSo even when they\u2019ve bathed and fed,
\nMade love, got drunk and slept, all three
\nRemain exiles from the moment,
\nNot fully present in their homes.
\nThe best that they can do is fold
\nExperience into meaning
\nThen fold away the meaning too.<\/p>\n