Efficiency rating

How efficient is snow

Straight down, fined to near-invisibility

deposits, in just minutes

inches - three or four - on top of cars. 

Soft-sludged to translucent

snow on ice on duckweed

colour of a much-hated 'tonic'

forced upon me when I was a child

On my way to buy a morning paper #93

Bullfinch pink
filling for a sandwich
between bullfinch blue hills
and clouds of identical hue.

5.55 a.m. From my office window

Early morning pink
like cotton-bolls
short lived
and quickly fade to palest grey.

On my way to buy a morning paper #79

Hydrangea bush

Over-crowded blooms

suffocating venous crimson  

crushed and crinkle-edged with gold

leaves poison gossip green.

Holding the potential drama

       of a Victorian drawing room,

Preparing pudding

Soft, warm plums in a bowl

fast-flushed with cold water

decorate their crimson skins 

with drops of crystal silver.

On opening the curtains

Not so much a careful observation

more a panic, thinking sky the colour of a putty rubber

meant someone had rubbed out the blue.
...

and later

something about hydrangeas –

frou-frou faded pinkness and a suggestion of talcum corsetry –

reminds me of my paternal grandmother.

Visiting my daughter

Accustoming myself, on waking, to the reflections

on the glass panels of the mezzanine balcony divide

I am startled by the sudden emergence of a new red planet

until I see it is a paper lampshade, blowing in the wind.

On my way to buy a morning paper #55

Cold west wind
two improbably orange cars, unpleasantly assertive
no Telegraphs ("problem with the printing")

On my way to buy a morning paper 44

Sweet-pea coloured dawn, contrailed grey-laces loosened, corset not yet removed.

Still.

Morning mist
gradually losing its greyness
muffles the sound of geese
down by the river

Have we met somewhere before?

Raising the kitchen blind I see a sky striped pink and blue which brings to mind, for the second time in twenty-four hours,  a ludicrous and thankfully long-forgotten song.