{"id":3759,"date":"2012-12-25T09:00:56","date_gmt":"2012-12-25T09:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=3759"},"modified":"2020-12-14T11:16:18","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T11:16:18","slug":"the-first-day-of-christmas-george-szirtes-peter-phelps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/the-first-day-of-christmas-george-szirtes-peter-phelps\/","title":{"rendered":"The First Day of Christmas: George Szirtes, Peter Phelps"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Black Dog Running<\/strong><\/p>\n

The dog is running through the snow –<\/p>\n

just watch him go!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A word of command and he\u2019s gone<\/p>\n

into the woods alone.<\/p>\n

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There his ilk congregate and bark<\/p>\n

to thicken the dark.<\/p>\n

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But here, clear snow and light,<\/p>\n

and no black dog in sight<\/p>\n

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just snow, just snow.<\/p>\n

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George Szirtes <\/strong>is a Hungarian-born poet, translator and blogger.\u00a0 This is his website<\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Photograph by Clarissa Upchurch<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Walk to the wood<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Winter’s early, November stillborn,<\/p>\n

the path already breathless<\/p>\n

beneath inches of pearl snow.<\/p>\n

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Grey geese beat upwind bleating curses;<\/p>\n

the sun\u2019s weighed down and waxen:<\/p>\n

it clings to the horizon.<\/p>\n

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In the wood a feathered silence falls,<\/p>\n

snowflakes drifting down to swell<\/p>\n

an already burdened brook.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Turning back I scrape my name in snow;<\/p>\n

one look at this sky enough:<\/p>\n

nothing here lasts.<\/p>\n

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Peter Phelps<\/strong> is an environmentalist, entrepreneur and writer who grew up in a family of nine children in outback Australia. He travelled and worked for several years in Russia and Central Asia, particularly Kazakhstan. He currently lives with his family in North Norfolk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                          Black Dog Running The dog is running through the snow – just watch him go!   A word of command and he\u2019s gone into the woods alone.   There his ilk congregate and bark to thicken the dark.   But here, clear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-twelve-days-of-christmas-2012"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3759","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=3759"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23944,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3759\/revisions\/23944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}